Commonwealth v. Egan

5 Pa. D. & C. 97, 1923 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 153
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Westmoreland County
DecidedDecember 8, 1923
DocketNo. 634
StatusPublished

This text of 5 Pa. D. & C. 97 (Commonwealth v. Egan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Westmoreland County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Egan, 5 Pa. D. & C. 97, 1923 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 153 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1923).

Opinion

Whitten, J.,

On June 16, 1917, at No. 25, May Term, 1917, in the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Andy Farral, the relator, was found guilty of violating the Act of June 7, 1911, P. L. 698. Judge Alexander D. McConnell, who presided at the trial, sentenced the said Andy Farral to pay a fine of $1 to the Commonwealth for the use of the county, and to be imprisoned in the Western Penitentiary, situate in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, for a period of not less than twelve years and nine months and not more than twenty-five years.

Oct. 23, 1923, said Andy Farral, being then imprisoned in said Western Penitentiary pursuant to the term of the sentence aforesaid, presented his petition to this court, setting forth the matters above stated, and averring, inter alia: “That your relator is advised and believes that the said sentence of imprisonment is illegal and wholly void, for the reason that the law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the statute under which the penalty of the crime is authorized does not authorize a sentence greater than for a period of ten years, and that the said court was without jurisdiction in imposing upon your relator a minimum sentence of twelve years and nine months and a maximum sentence of twenty-five years, and that said sentence is, therefore, illegal and void, and that the detention of your relator in the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, in Allegheny County, in execution thereof, is without any lawful authority,” and praying that a writ of habeas corpus issue to the said warden of the penitentiary, directing him to produce the body of the relator, and that said relator be thereupon released and discharged from such imprisonment.

A writ of habeas eorpus was granted as prayed for in the said' petition. The district attorney filed an answer to the said petition, denying that the relator is entitled to the relief prayed for, or to any other relief.

It was agreed by counsel for the relator and the district attorney that there is no issue of fact in dispute, but only a question of law to be determined from an inspection of the record of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, and that the [98]*98relator waive his right to be brought in person before the court pending the decision of the cause.

The first count of the indictment charges that the defendant (relator) did: “On or about the 10th day of February, 1917, and at divers other times within two years last past, unlawfully and feloniously persuade, encourage, inveigle and induce Susan Haubert, a female person, to become a prostitute, contrary to the form of the act of the general assembly,” etc.

The second count of the indictment charges that the defendant (relator) did: “Afterwards, to wit, on the same day and year aforesaid, unlawfully, feloniously and knowingly accept, receive and appropriate money, to wit, the sum of $87, without consideration, from the proceeds of earnings of the said Susan Haubert, a woman engaged in prostitution,” etc.

The third count of the indictment charges that the defendant (relator) did: “Afterwards, to wit, on the same day and year aforesaid, unlawfully, feloniously and knowingly transport, and cause to be transported, from the State of Ohio into the Commonwealth and to the Borough of Greensburg, the said Susan Haubert, a female person, with intent and purpose to induce, entice and compel her, the said Susan Haubert, a female person, to become a prostitute,” etc.

The first count of the indictment charges a violation of the provisions of the 1st section of the Act of June 7, 1911, P. L. 698, entitled “An act defining and prohibiting pandering, providing penalties for violation thereof, and regulating the competency of certain evidence at the trial thereof.”

The second count charges a violation of the provisions of the 3rd section of the above statute; and the third count charges a violation of the provisions of the 5th section thereof.

The 1st section of the above statute defines the offence of pandering, and provides that a defendant, upon conviction thereof, “shall be sentenced to imprisonment by separate or solitary confinement at labor for a period of not more than ten years.”

The offence described in the 3rd section of the statute (second count of the indictment) is not embraced in the 1st section thereof; neither is the offence described in the 5th section of the statute (third count of the indictment) included in the 1st or 3rd sections of said statute.

It must be apparent, from a perusal of the entire statute, that the legislature thereby intended that the offences described in the different sections thereof were separate offences, and that each was to carry its appropriate penalty. “Identity as to the acts in the two counts is not to be presumed; if the record showed an identity, but one sentence could be sustained:” Com. v. Birdsall, 69 Pa. 482.

In the above case, the court (Agnew, J., page 485) said: “When ... an indictment charges in one count a breaking and entering a building with intent to steal, and in another count a stealing in the same building on the same day, and the defendant is found guilty, generally the sentence, whether that which is proper for the burglary only, or for the burglary and larceny also, cannot be reversed on error because the record does not show whether one offence only or two were proved at the trial; and as this must be'known by the judge who tried the cause, the sentence will be presumed to have been according to the law that was applicable to the facts proved. . . . There can be no doubt the Court of Quarter Sessions had good reasons for passing the sentence on each count of this indictment; and so the defendant or his counsel must have thought or he would not have suffered three years to run, and when the facts were likely to be forgotten, before taking out a writ of error.”

[99]*99In the instant case, judgment was entered upon the verdict June 16, 1917. From this judgment no appeal was taken. Judge Alexander D. McConnell, who presided at the trial, died Sept. 6, 1921. The notes of testimony taken at the trial have not been preserved. The indictment contained three counts, each charging separate offences. The learned trial judge must have been satisfied that the evidence warranted the verdict of guilty on each count. The maximum penalty on each count is imprisonment for ten years. Here, the maximum penalty imposed was twenty-five years. Therefore, the sentence necessarily embraced a penalty for each of the three counts in the indictment.

Undoubtedly, if the court had sentenced the defendant separately upon each of -the three counts, the total of the terms of imprisonment which could have been lawfully imposed might have exceeded both the total of the minimum and the maximum terms of imprisonment now complained of.

Therefore, the only question before the court is whether a lumping sentence upon the three counts in the indictment can be sustained, or, rather, whether such a sentence can be reviewed upon a writ of habeas corpus.

In Com. ex rel. Hallett v. McKenty, 80 Pa. Superior Ct. 249, the defendant plead guilty to six indictments, each charging a separate offence. The maximum penalty for each offence was three years imprisonment. The defendant was sentenced to the penitentiary for a period of not less than seven and a-half years and not more than thirty years. The defendant had been previously convicted twice of the same crime, but the indictment did not set forth such previous convictions.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
5 Pa. D. & C. 97, 1923 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 153, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-egan-pactcomplwestmo-1923.