Case ID: navajo-rptr_1/html/0053-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "KIRK, Chief Justice", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS OF: LEON ROAN
    Decided on February 29, 1972
    John H. Yazzie, D. N. A., Window Rock, Arizona, for Petitioner Roan
    Before KIRK, Chief Justice, BECENTI and LEUPP, Associate Justices
   KIRK, Chief Justice

This case comes before this Court on an original petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed here alleging that the petitioner is wrongfully restrained because of a judgment of the Trial Court for the Chinle District on the 11th day of February, 1972, sentencing the petitioner to forty-five (45) days in jail for driving while intoxicated in violation of 14 N.T.C. § 246.

This is a companion case to In Re Oscar T. Chischilly, Sr., No. A-CR-02-72 decided this day and we deny this petition for the reasons stated in our opinion in that case.

In the present case it has been argued that 14 N.T.C. § 245 providing that the offender "may be" sentenced to labor gives the court the alternative of sentencing the defendant to some other penalty such as that provided by 14 N.T.C. § 203. We find no merit in this contention .

The petitioner also argues that a defendant who is given a jail sentence because he is unable to pay a fine has been dented equal protection of the laws in violation of the Indian Civil Rights Act (25 U.S.C., § 1302). We do not find this point to have any connection with the present case.

It is accordingly ORDERED that the petition be dismissed.

BECENTI, Associate Justice, and LEUPP, Associate Justice, concur.