Case ID: la-ann_47-2/html/1600-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Miller, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 11,894.
    State of Louisiana ex rel. Louis Romero vs. Hon. A. C. Allen, Judge of the Seventeenth Judicial District Court, Parish of Vermilion.
    The court again affirms that applications for writs of prohibition and certiorari under Art. 90 of the Constitution will not be entertained, unless the appropriate method to obtain relief is first resorted to in the lower court.
    APPLICATION for Writs of Certiorari, Prohibition and Habeas Corpus.
    
    
      L. L. Bourges for Relator.
    Submitted on briefs November 4, 1895.
    Opinion handed down November 18, 1895.
    Rehearing refused December 17, 1895.
    Application por Writs op Certiorari and Prohibition.
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Miller, J.

The relator, sentenced by the lower court to pay a fine for refusing to work on the public roads, or be imprisoned for thirty days, complains that the sentence is in excess of the jurisdiction of the court; that he has no remedy by appeal, and asks relief at our hands by the issue of writs of prohibition and certiorari.

The proceedings against the relator, resulting in the sentence, were under the act of the Legislature No. 112 of 1880, amending the section of the Revised Statutes relative to public roads. The act provides that for the failure to work on the roads when required, as prescribed in the act, the penalty incurred shall be a fine, and in default of payment, imprisonment not exceeding five days. The sentence was undoubtedly, in excess of the power of the court to impose, but the judge, in his return, states the sentence as pronounced was in accordance with the law, but was erroneously entered on the minutes. Of course, we are restricted to the record in our examination of the case. However, the record shows no attempt in the lower court to correct the error in the sentence. If the excess of the punishment over that allowed by the statute had of been brought to the notice of the court, we can not doubt the error would have been corrected. We think this a proper case to apply the rule that on these applications the relief will be refused unless the opportunity is afforded the lower court to correct the error, the basis of complaint. In this case we are bound to presume an application to correct the minutes so as to show the proper sentence would have accomplished the object of the application to us. The State ex rel. J. L. Smith vs. The Judge of the Eighteenth District Court, parish of St. Tammany, 38 An. 920; State ex rel. J. A. Shakespeare, Mayor, vs. Judge Civil District Court, Division " E,” 40 An. 607.

It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed that the relator’s petition be dismissed at his costs.