Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

38 Mich. 311

In re Coffeen

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided January 30, 1878

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1878-01-30

<p> Error lies to review a conviction. </p> <p>■ The validity of a conviction is to be passed upon on a writ of error, and not on an application for the writ of habeas corpus.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-01-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently March 1946

8 state decisions

2018781880189019001910192019301940decided

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.

¶1The petition shows that the petitioner was convicted, and so far as appears, regularly convicted of arson and sentenced to the State Prison. This writ is applied for on the ground that by § 8165 of the Compiled Laws, all women convicted of offenses punishable theretofore in the State prison (except murder) should be sentenced to confinement in the Detroit house of correction for such term of years as the court should deem just.

¶2This is a common law proceeding and does not come under the statute, which in certain cases makes the writ *312of habeas corpus a writ demandable of right. It is not usual to make this writ perform the duty of a writ of error, and it should not be allowed to have that effect where the ends of justice would be endangered by it.

¶3As the conviction in this case was in due course of law, it is a question involving very serious consideration whether the sentence is one which cannot be rectified by a new sentence, in case it is found that the statute has the effect of annulling the first sentence, which is also a question not to be lightly passed upon.

¶4If the applicant should be finally found entitled to go at large, it will be upon an error founded on no meritorious ground. Upon habeas corpus, if it should turn out there is no valid sentence, we could not render any judgment which would operate directly upon the judgment below. We shall not pass, therefore, upon its validity until we have it before us on writ of error, when every consideration can be examined properly, and complete justice done so far as the law will enable us 4o do it.

¶5Petition refused.

/38/mich/311 · .json · Public domain