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32 Me. 440

Phinney

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided April 15, 1851

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1851-04-15

<p>To justify the discharge, upon Habeas Corpus, of a respondent, imprisoned by a justice’s mittimus to enforce the payment of a fine for unlawfully selling spirituous liquors, it is not sufficient that the mittimus fails to state the name of the purchaser, or the quantity sold, or the time and place of the sale; or that there was a prosecutor; provided,, the mittimus shows the offence to be one for which the justice has jurisdiction to impose a fine.</p> <p>Neither, to justify such a discharge, is it sufficient that the justice erroneously ordered the fine to be paid to the State.</p>

Relies on Commonwealth v. Ward

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1851-04-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently July 1907

3 state decisions

10185118601870188018901900decided

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.

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Shepley, C. J.,

¶1orally.

¶21. It is objected that the mittimus does not show that there, was a prosecutor, or who was the purchaser of the liquor, or when or where, or in what quantity it was sold. In support of the objection, the petitioner’s counsel has cited 4 Mass. 497 and 641. The former case has no applicability, because the offence there charged was one of which the magistrate had jurisdiction, not to render a final judgment, but merely to bind over. In the latter case, the recognizance did not present, enough to show that the justice had any jurisdiction whatever. But in this petitioner’s case, it is shown that the of-fence, of which he was convicted, was within the justice’s jurisdiction.

¶32. The sentence was, that the petitioner pay a fine to the State. This was erroneous, still the judgment is valid until reversed. If it were here upon a certiorari, the erroneous part might be reversed, leaving the penalty unappropriated. But the petitioner is not injured by the misappropriation. On paying the fine and cost, he would be discharged. That is enough for him. State v. Stinson, 17 Maine, 154; Ricker, petitioner, 31 Maine, 37.

¶4The petitioner, if present on Habeas Corpus, could not be discharged. Petition withdrawn.

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