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34 Mo. 29

Presbury v. Hull

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided March 15, 1863

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1863-03-15

Louis Cou/rt of Common Pleas. This is an action on a bond of indemnity, executed by Marcus A. Wolff as principal, and Hull as security. The action was instituted against both; but after the evidence was heard, the respondent dismissed as to the principal.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The statute of Missouri, which enacts that a sentence of imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of less than life, suspends all civil rights of the person so sentenced during the term thereof, applies only to sentences in the State courts. We know of no similar act as to sentences by the Federal courts, and without such act there is no suspension”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Hill v. Correctional Officer Gentry

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1863-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently September 1977

1 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

20186318701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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 →

Bates, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The first instruction was properly refused because it required the court to determine a question of fact in stating that the refunding by the plaintiff to the holders of the land warrants was a voluntary act.

¶3The record does not show that there was any error in the refusal of the third instruction. The balance sheet is not in the record, and we presume that the court below understood it correctly.

¶4*34The record does not show what were the grounds of objection to the deposition of Perkins, and we therefore will not look into objections stated here.

¶5The transcript of the record of the conviction of Wolff of a crime, and judgment thereon, by the Circuit Court of the United States for the Missouri district were properly rejected.

¶6The statute of Missouri, which enacts that a sentence of imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of less than life, suspends all civil rights of the person so sentenced during the term thereof, applies only to sentences in the State courts. We know of no similar act as to sentences by the Federal courts, and without such act there is no such suspension. A sentence for life even would not have the effect of making the convict civilly dead. (Platner v. Sherwood, 6 John. Chy. 118.) Here the sentence was for one year.

¶7It is of no consequence that Wolff’s offence might have been punished by a State court (if it be so); for it is not the fact of criminality which, ■ in any case, suspends his rights, but the conviction and sentence to the penitentiary.

¶8Judgment affirmed.

Judges Bay and Dryden concur.
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