Court Opinion

ID: 9846316
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:39:05.640053+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:27.127279
License: Public Domain

*814Haymond, Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent from the judgment of the majority to the extent that it directs the circuit court, upon the remand of this proceeding, to impose a valid sentence upon the petitioner with credit for time served. Instead the majority, after holding void the sentence of confinement in the penitentiary erroneously imposed by the trial court, should have ordered the unconditional release of the petitioner from any confinement whatsoever under the current indictment against him.
If it were not for the obvious injustice to which this petitioner has been subjected by the plainly erroneous action of the trial court in imposing a void sentence of confinement in the penitentiary of not less than one year nor more than ten years for a misdemeanor the maximum penalty for which is sixty days in jail and a fine of one hundred dollars, the criminal prosecution of the petitioner upon the indictment which, contrary to the statute creating the offense, Section 30, Article 3, Chapter 61, Code, 1931, charged the petitioner with feloniously violating the statute, could be appropriately characterized a legal comedy of errors. Every step in the prosecution of the petitioner appears to have been taken erroneously. The persistence in error did not stop with the return of the indictment but continued in unsuccessful efforts to find some justification for the imposition of a penitentiary sentence upon a defendant who has committed not a felony but a misdemeanor. Moreover the action of the majority in directing the court upon the remand to impose a valid sentence though admitting, as the majority does, that the portion of the invalid sentence already served by the petitioner exceeds the maximum imprisonment that can be imposed by a valid sentence of not more than sixty days in jail, has converted a relatively simple matter into an unnecessarily complicated legal problem in making the questionable determination that the indictment against the petitioner is a valid indictment for a misdemeanor instead of a void indictment for a felony, even though everyone connected with the criminal prosecution considered it to be a felony for which no specific penalty has been provided by any statute of this state. As the majority concedes that the judgment sentencing the *815petitioner to confinement in the penitentiary was a void judgment it was manifestly unnecessary to determine whether the indictment was a valid indictment for a misdemeanor or a void indictment for a felony.
After a labored and, I think, wholly unnecessary determination of the validity of the indictment, with which I disagree, the majority directs the trial court, upon the remand, to impose a new or additional valid sentence which can not exceed sixty days in jail and a fine of one hundred dollars, even though, as the majority concedes, the petitioner has served more than sixty days under the void penitentiary sentence, instead of avoiding any unnecessary complication by ordering the unconditional release of the petitioner from any confinement whatsoever. Such release would be the just and simple course, and in my judgment the only course, to follow under the unusual circumstances disclosed by the record in this proceeding.
It is well established by the decisions of this Court that a void judgment is a mere nullity and is of no valid force or effect. State ex rel. Bradley v. Johnson, 152 W.Va. 655, 166 S.E.2d 137; State ex rel. Vance v. Arthur, 142 W.Va. 737, 98 S.E.2d 418, and the many cases cited in the opinion in that case. This Court has also held in recent cases, a few of which are cited in the majority opinion, that a judgment which is wholly void, as here, or is void in part, is subject to collateral attack and that the enforcement of such judgment will be prevented in a habeas corpus proceeding. State ex rel. Strickland v. Melton, 152 W.Va. 500, 165 S.E.2d 90; State ex rel. Bradley v. Johnson, 152 W.Va. 655, 166 S.E.2d 137; State ex rel. Widmyer v. Boles, 150 W.Va. 109, 144 S.E.2d 322; State ex rel. Whytsell v. Boles, 149 W.Va. 324, 141 S.E.2d 70; State ex rel. Calloway v. Boles, 149 W.Va. 297, 140 S.E.2d 624; State ex rel. Stumbo v. Boles, 149 W.Va. 174, 139 S.E.2d 259; State ex rel. Beckett v. Boles, 149 W.Va. 112, 138 S.E.2d 851, and that a person imprisoned under a void judgment will be released from such judgment by a writ of habeas corpus, State ex rel. Strickland v. Melton, 152 W.Va. 500, 165 S.E.2d 90; State ex rel. Whytsell v. Boles, 149 W.Va. 324, 141 S.E.2d 70; State ex rel. Calloway v. Boles, 149 W.Va. *816297, 140 S.E.2d 624; State ex rel. Stumbo v. Boles, 149 W.Va. 174, 139 S.E.2d 259; State ex rel. Powers v. Boles, 149 W.Va. 6, 138 S.E.2d 159; State ex rel. Boner v. Boles, 148 W.Va. 802, 137 S.E.2d 418; State ex rel. Nicholson v. Boles, 148 W.Va. 229, 134 S.E.2d 576, and the many cases cited in the opinion in that case.
Though release of a defendant from confinement under a void sentence may be and sometimes is made subject to the imposition of a valid sentence or subject to further proceedings against him by the State, no condition should attend the release of the petitioner who, as already indicated here and in the majority opinion, has served a period of imprisonment in excess of any such period that could be legally imposed by any valid sentence under the current indictment. State ex rel. Whytsell v. Boles, 149 W.Va. 324, 141 S.E.2d 70. In all fairness, and to prevent further injustice, the petitioner should be given forthwith his unconditional release from any confinement.
I would remand this proceeding to the Circuit Court of Webster County with directions forthwith to cancel any recognizance of the petitioner and to release him unconditionally from any confinement whatsoever.