Case Name: McQuinn's Petition
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Hampshire
Decision Date: 1888-12
Citations: 65 N.H. 84
Docket Number: 
Parties: McQuinn’s Petition.
Judges: Smith, J., did not sit: the others concurred.
Reporter: New Hampshire Reports
Volume: 65
Pages: 84–85

Head Matter:
McQuinn’s Petition.
A person discharged from the asylum for the insane cannot be remanded to prison if the term of his imprisonment has expired.
Petition to be discharged from the asylum for the insane. Facts found by a justice of this court, to whom the petition was presented, and by whom it was adjourned into the law term, August 29, 1888.
At the March term, 1888, the petitioner was convicted of an assault upon an officer, sentenced to the house of correction for three months, and committed. May 18, 1888, upon the petition of the jailer, representing that McQuinn was insane, he was com mitted to the asylum. The cause of his commitment to the asylum has ceased.
I). F. O’Connor, for the petitioner.

Opinion:
Carpenter, J.
"Any person committed to the asylum may be discharged by any three of the trustees, or by a justice of the supreme court, whenever the cause of commitment ceases, or a further residence at the asylum, in their opinion, is not necessary ; but any person so discharged, who was under sentence of imprisonment at the time of his commitment, the period of which shall not have expired, shall be remanded to prison." G. L., c. 10, s. 22. If the proper construction of this language is open to a possible doubt, a reference to previous statutes for which the section was substituted in the revision of 1867 makes it certain. Rev. St., c. 9, s. 17; Laws of 1845, c. 246; Com. Report of 1867, c. 10, ss. 18, 20, 21; Gen. St., c. 10, s. 18.
A person discharged from the asylum cannot be remanded to prison, if at the time of the discharge the term for which he was sentenced to imprisonment has expired.
Petitioner discharged.
Smith, J., did not sit: the others concurred.