Court Opinion

ID: 9535349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:48:18.347588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:13.704098
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion
Draper, C. J.
I concur in the result reached.
“Cases of habeas corpus” are by statute made appealable to this court under the provisions of Burns’ 1946 Repl., §4-214, subdiv. 5. The same section provides in subdivision 14 thereof that interlocutory orders upon writs of habeas corpus are appealable to this court. Interlocutory orders and judgments upon writs of habeas corpus are also made appealable to this court under provisions of Burns’ 1946 Repl., §2-3218.
I can see nothing of an interlocutory nature about the judgment here appealed from. It completely ad*265judicates and puts an end to the case presented below. It disposes of the subject-matter of the litigation so far as the court had power to dispose of it. It was not “an order of the court made in the progress of the cause requiring something to be done or observed, but not determining the controversy.” Burns’ 1946 Repl., §2-3201 provides that appeals may be taken from all final judgments. I think this was a final judgment, appealable as such. The State, on the relation of Sharpe v. Banks (1865), 25 Ind. 495; Henson v. Walts et ux. (1872), 40 Ind. 170.
In cases involving the life or liberty of an appellant it has long been the established policy of this court to overlook procedural failures in order to determine whether the constitutional rights of the appellant have been infringed upon. Particularly and specifically has this.been so where, as here, such questions are clearly and adequately shown by the bill of exceptions and presented by the briefs of the appellant.
But I am doubtful whether we should do so where the question involves the constitutionality of a statute rather than the asserted deprivation of fundamental rights as guaranteed to the accused by constitutional provision such as the right to counsel as in Wilson V. State, the acceptance of a plea of guilty under circumstances where the accused did not comprehend the import and consequences thereof as in Lobaugh v. State, and the like.
Note. — Reported in 118 N. E. 2d 805.