Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

211 Va. 119

176 S.E.2d 427

Moore v. Peyton

Supreme Court of Virginia

Decided September 4, 1970

Supreme Court of Virginia · decided 1970-09-04

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“(3) Such petition may allege detention without lawful authority through challenge to a conviction, although the sentence imposed for such conviction is suspended or is to be served subsequently to the sentence currently being served by petitioner.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Downey v. Peyton

Relies on Smyth v. Midgett · Peyton v. Christian

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1970-09-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently December 2002

9 federal appellate · 3 state decisions

1101970198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Curiam.

¶1 The petitioners seek to determine the validity of sentences which they had fully served prior to the institution of these proceedings.

¶2 In Smyth v.Midgett, 199 Va. 727, 730, 101 S.E.2d 575, 578 (1958), we held: “A court does not have jurisdiction to determine the validity of a sentence under which the prisoner is not being detained. It follows that where a prisoner is being detained under a valid sen *120 tence he is not entitled to credit for time served on a void sentence fully served before the proceeding for writ of habeas corpus is instituted____”

¶3 Code § 8-596 was amended in 1968 to extend the jurisdiction of our courts in habeas corpus proceedings to permit a sentence to be challenged “ . . . although the sentence imposed for such conviction ... is to be served subsequently to the sentence currently being served by the petitioner.” (Emphasis supplied)

¶4 While this amendment extends jurisdiction to permit a petitioner to challenge the validity of a sentence to be served subsequently, it does not extend jurisdiction to the courts of Virginia to permit a determination of the validity of a sentence fully served before the proceeding for a writ of habeas corpus is instituted.

¶5 Peyton v. Christian, 208 Va. 105, 155 S.E.2d 335 (1967), relied upon by the petitioners, is not applicable here as it presented an entirely different factual situation from the cases now before us. In Christian there had been a final judicial determination in another earlier proceeding that a sentence imposed on November 10, 1944, was void. The only question to be decided by the court was the date petitioner commenced to serve a valid sentence imposed on March 25, 1945. We determined this to be from March 25, 1945, the date of the final judgment, as is provided by Code § 53-207.

¶6 Writs denied.

/211/va/119 · .json · Public domain