Case ID: mich_7/html/0467-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the matter of Samuel V. Berry.
    Justices of tlio Peace and the Police Justice of Detroit, under the statute giving them jurisdiction of criminal offenses where the punishment does not exceed a fine of one hundred dollars or three months’ imprisonment, or both, have no jurisdiction of cases where the maximum punishment allowed by law exceeds those limits.
    
      Heard and decided December 6th.
    
    
      Habeas Corpus to the sheriff of "Wayne county, to bring up the body of the petitioner. The return showed that the sheriff held him in custody under a warrant of com-, mitment issued by the police justice of Detroit, on con-viction for unlawfully attempting to join in marriage a white person and a negro; upon which conviction the justice had sentenced him to pay a fine of fifty dollars, and in default thereof to be imprisoned ninety days.
    
      J. JO. Chipman and W. JE. Cheever now applied for peti'tioner’s discharge. The offense of which he was convicted is punishable by statute by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding a year, and the case is therefore clearly not within the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, and consequently not within that of the police justice.— Qom/p. JO. §3294 sub. 8.
    
      JD. JE. Ilarbaugh, contra.
   The court held the case to be clearly beyond the jurisdiction of the police justice, and ordered petitioner to be discharged.