Case ID: mich-np-r_1/html/00ix-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Graves, J", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the matter of Eliza Weinrich.
    The sixth section of the “ Act to provide for the imprisonment and detention of convicted per» sons in the Detroit House of Correction” (Laxos o/‘lS69,ip. 269,) is the only ©ue that can be of force elsewhere than In the county of Wayne.
    
      Certiorari to Wayne Circuit Court.
   Opinion by

Graves, J

—The petitioner was convicted in the county of Genesee of being a common prostitute, and sentenced to the House of Correction at Detroit for three years, under the Act to provide for the imprisonment and detention of convicted persons in the Detroit House of Correction.” Laws of 1869, p. 269. She petitioned the Wayne Circuit Court for discharge on habeas corpus, on the grounds, first, that this Act was unconstitutional, and, second, if not unconstitutional, it was, by its express provisions, limited in its operations to the county of Wayne. The Circuit Court denied the motion.

From the record it appeared that the conviction must have been ,had under the fourth section of the Act. ' The third section provides that “ the provisions of this Act shall apply to the county of Wayne only.” Whatever may have been the intent of this provision, the Court was of opinion that they must give it effect by applying it to all parts of the Act where the intent that they should be of general application did not distinctly appear. The sixth section, which relates to the confinement of persons under fifteen years of age until they reach twenty-one, is the only one which cannot have full effect within the county of Wayne, and is, therefore, the only one that can be in force elsewhere.

Order reversed and petitioner discharged.

Whether the Act has any constitutional validity anywhere was not decided.