Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/228/652/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 19:51:31+00:00

Document:
It is only in exceptional cases that this Court will interfere by habeas corpus with the course, or final administration, of the criminal justice of the states by their respective courts, Urquhart v. Brown, 205 U. S. 179, and this rule applies as well after, as before, sentence.
Justice is satisfied by the opportunity given to defendants accused of and tried for crime in the state courts to set up their federal rights in those courts, and the course of criminal justice will not be deranged and possibly defeated by permitting the defenses based on such rights to be raised for the first time by habeas corpus in the federal courts after sentence in the state court.
The writ of habeas corpus is not to be used as a writ of error.
Where, as in Pennsylvania, the judgment of the trial court in criminal cases is subject to modification, as well as affirmance or reversal, by the appellate court, and a sentence partly legal and partly illegal under the state law can be modified by striking therefrom the illegal part, such sentence is erroneous, and not void; this Court will not, therefore, on habeas corpus, pass upon the question of legality of the part of the sentence complained of. The proper procedure is to review the judgment on appeal. Ex Parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163, distinguished.
It is not the duty of this Court to anticipate the decision of the state court as to the effect of one state statute upon an earlier one, or to declare which of two rules supported by conflicting decisions the state court will apply.
The facts, which involve the jurisdiction and practice of this Court in regard to issuing writs of habeas corpus in cases where the petitioners have been sentenced in the state courts, are stated in the opinion.
These applications were filed, and rules to show cause were issued. They were argued together, and may be disposed of in one opinion.
Petitioners were indicted in the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, in the County of Lycoming, State of Pennsylvania, upon a charge of conspiracy to cheat and defraud, which the indictment charged was executed on the tenth day of September, 1910.
"pay a fine of $500, costs of prosecution, and undergo an imprisonment in the Eastern Penitentiary at Philadelphia for an indeterminate period at separate and solitary confinement at labor, the minimum of which should be eighteen months and the maximum two years."
The costs and fines have been paid. In execution of the sentences of imprisonment, Robert J. McKenty, warden of the penitentiary, holds petitioners in custody in violation of § 10 of Article I, of the Constitution of the United States, which forbids any state to pass an ex post facto law, and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in that petitioners are deprived of their liberty without due process of law.
separate and solitary confinement at labor, or by simple imprisonment not exceeding two years."
"Whenever any person convicted in any court of this commonwealth of any crime shall be sentenced to imprisonment in either the Eastern or Western Penitentiary, the court, instead of pronouncing upon such convict a definite or fixed term of imprisonment, shall pronounce upon such convict a sentence of imprisonment for an indefinite term, stating in such sentence the minimum and maximum limits thereof, fixing as the minimum time of such imprisonment the term now or hereafter prescribed as the minimum imprisonment for punishment of such offense; but if there be no minimum time so prescribed, the court shall determine the same, but it shall not exceed one-fourth of the maximum time, and the maximum limit shall be the maximum time now or hereafter prescribed as a penalty for such offense."
By the terms of these two acts, which were the law for petitioners' punishment at the time their crime was committed, the most severe punishment which could be inflicted upon each of them was a fine of $500, and imprisonment in the penitentiary for the minimum term of six months, and a maximum term of two years.
Nearly a year after the crime was committed, the Legislature of Pennsylvania repealed the Act of May 10, 1909, without any saving clause, and enacted the Act of June 19, 1911, under which petitioners were sentenced. By the terms of the latter act, the length of the minimum term of imprisonment is wholly within the discretion of the court, provided it does not exceed the maximum term.
simple imprisonment, as provided in the Act of 1860, would have been "not less than six months nor more than two years at separate and solitary confinement at labor."
Petitioners, however, were sentenced each to pay a fine of $500 and costs, and to be imprisoned for an indeterminate period, the minimum of which should be eighteen months and the maximum two years.
To the rules to show cause, the answer of the warden has been filed. It asserts the legality of the sentences and the following reasons why the writs should not issue: petitioners, after sentence, took an appeal to the superior court of Pennsylvania, where the sentences were affirmed. Subsequently they presented a petition to the supreme court of the state, praying for a special allocatur to allow an appeal from the judgment of the superior court, which petition was refused. In neither court did they raise the question of the constitutionality of the statute of June 19, 1911, or complain that the sentences were imposed under an ex post facto law, excessive or in other respects unconstitutional.
Afterwards, petitioners petitioned the supreme court of the state for a writ of habeas corpus to the Sheriff of Lycoming county, in whose custody they then were for delivery to the warden, and in their petition raised the same questions which they now raise in their petitions here. The court refused the petition. The petitioners then applied to the judge of the District Court of the United States for the Middle District of Pennsylvania for habeas corpus, raising the same questions as here. The petition was refused. This action of the courts is averred to be an adjudication of the questions involved. And it is averred that the view most favorable to petitioners is that the sentences imposed upon them are legal and valid sentences for a term of at least six months, and they have not yet served so much of the term.
The petitions and answer to them indicate the contentions of the parties. The petitioners contend that their sentences are illegal in that they were imposed under a law which is ex post facto and violates Article I of the Constitution of the United States, and that they are deprived of their liberty in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Respondent opposes the contentions, and urges besides that they have been adjudicated against petitioners, and that they are seeking to use habeas corpus as a writ of error to review and reverse the judgment of the courts of Pennsylvania. One of the contentions of respondent is that it is too late for petitioners to avail themselves of the objections they urge to their sentences; another contention is that their applications are premature, the sentences being at least valid for six months, which had not expired when the petitions were filed.
"If the supreme court had affirmed the denial of the discharge on the ground that the proper course was to raise the objections relied upon at the trial of the principal case on the merits, and to take the question up by writ of error, it would have adopted the rule that prevails in this Court, and there would be nothing to be said."
will make unstable and uncertain the administration of the criminal laws of the states. If defenses may be omitted at trials, rights of review omitted, and yet availed of through habeas corpus, the whole course of criminal justice will be deranged, and, it may be, defeated. This is the practical result in the case at bar. Petitioners contend for a discharge, having fulfilled what they consider the legal part of their sentences, but which is manifestly below what, in the law of the state, is fixed for their crime. And, illustrating their arguments, petitioners told us of other cases which are waiting to come forward with an appeal for like remedy and jail delivery.
propriety of granting a qualified pardon be determined."
See Commonwealth v. Brown, 167 Mass. 144.
The court decided, therefore, that both the Acts of 1909 and 1911 prescribed a maximum sentence for crime, and that the provisions for indeterminate sentence, with provision for clemency, were matters of grace, and could be varied by the legislature, and could not be condemned as ex post facto laws.
Beale v. Commonwealth, 25 Pa. 11; White v. Commonwealth, 3 Brewster 30.
In Daniels v. Commonwealth, the court said that, under the power given by the statute cited above, it was authorized not only to reverse or affirm, but to modify a judgment -- "that is, to change its form, vary, or qualify it, and this as well in criminal as in civil cases." Exercising this power, the court struck from a sentence an illegal part, and affirmed it in all other respects. The same power was exercised in Beale v. Commonwealth. In White v. Commonwealth, a judgment in excess of what was authorized by the statute was reversed, and the prisoner resentenced.
The sentences imposed on petitioners were therefore not void, but erroneous only, and subject to change or modification by the supreme court, or reversal, and petitioners subject to resentence, and Ex Parte Lange does not apply. In In re Lincoln, 202 U. S. 178, habeas corpus was denied because there was an appeal from the judgment attacked which could have been taken to the circuit court of appeals, applying the rule which we have so often expressed that the writ of habeas corpus is not to be used as a writ of error. And the reason is manifest. When the orderly procedure of appeal is employed, the case is kept within the control and disposition of the courts, and if the judgment be excessive or illegal, it may be modified or changed and complete justice done, as we have said, to the prisoner, and the penalties of the law satisfied as well. This comment is applicable to the case at bar. The supreme court of the state has decided, as we have sen, that neither the Act of 1909 nor that of 1911 repealed the Act of 1860, supra, which defined the statutory crime of conspiracy, and imposed upon those guilty of it a punishment by fine not exceeding $500 and imprisonment not exceeding two years.
of 1911 upon the Act of 1909, assuming the former to be unconstitutional? The supreme court of the state, as we have seen, has declared it constitutional, but the question has not been presented to the court as to what would be the effect of the Act of 1911 if declared by this Court to be unconstitutional. Necessarily, this Court would leave to the supreme court of the state the decision of that question, it being a state question. It would not be our duty to decide it or to anticipate the decision of that court, which might indeed reconcile the acts with the constitutional rights of petitioners. The repealing clause of the Act of 1911 is not in absolute form. It repeals only acts which are inconsistent with the Act of 1911. It may be declared that a void act cannot be legally inconsistent with a valid one. Shepardson v. Milwaukee &c. R. Co., 6 Wis. 605; State ex Rel. Rogers v. Burton, 11 Wis. 51; Campau v. Detroit, 14 Mich. 276; Childs v. Shower, 18 Iowa, 261; Board of County Commissioners v. First National Bank, 6 Colo. App. 423; Birkenhead Docks v. Laird, 4 DeG., M. & G. 732. See Schneider v. Staples, 66 Wis. 167. There may be cases the other way, as, it may be said, In re Medley is. 134 U. S. 160, 134 U. S. 174. Which is the more logical rule we are not called upon to pronounce, nor to say which, under the circumstances, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania might apply.

References: v. 
 § 10
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.