Case ID: mich_39/html/0057-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Cooley, J. Graves, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Brown v. The People.
    
      Excessive sentence.
    
    A court of record cannot impose a severer penalty for an offense cognizable by a justice, than the justice could have imposed.
    A sentence that is merely excessive is reversed for the excess only. Comp. L., § 7998.
    Error to the Recorder’s Court of Detroit.
    Submitted June 5.
    Decided June 18.
    Assault and battery.
    
      Hawley d Firnane for plaintiff in error.
    Attorney General Otto Kirchner for the People.
   Cooley, J.

In Nelson v. The People, 38 Mich., 618, disposed of at the last term, I expressed the opinion that where a party is convicted in a court of record of an offense for which he might have been tried in justice’s court, it was not competent for the court to impose upon him a sentence more severe than could have been imposed had he been tried in justice’s court. This case is one of that class; the offense being assault and battery, and the punishment for that offense, when imposed by a justice of the peace, being limited to three months.

The sentence imposed by the Recorder is of imprisonment for one year. By statute — Comp. L., § 7998 — a sentence merely excessive is to be reversed for the excess only, and this should therefore be affirmed as a sentence for three months only, and reversed as to the remainder.

Campbell, C. J., concurred.

Graves, J.

Whilst 1 am not clear that the view here taken is correct, I am not prepared to say it is wrong, .and therefore I concur.

Marston, J., concurred.