Ulrich v. O'Grady

287 N.W. 81, 136 Neb. 684, 1939 Neb. LEXIS 143
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 18, 1939
DocketNo. 30631
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 287 N.W. 81 (Ulrich v. O'Grady) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ulrich v. O'Grady, 287 N.W. 81, 136 Neb. 684, 1939 Neb. LEXIS 143 (Neb. 1939).

Opinion

Paine, J.

A petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed in the district court for Lancaster county on October 22, 1938, to secure release of John Ulrich, who it is 'alleged is being illegally restrained of his liberty by the warden of the state penitentiary. Upon hearing, the writ was denied and the petition dismissed. Motion for rehearing was filed on the ground that the court erred in dismissing the relator’s writ, and in the application of the law and the facts. Motion for rehearing was overruled. Relator excepts and appeals.

The petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and the exhibits attached, set out that John Ulrich was sentenced from Dodge county on June 22, 1928, to serve a period of 18 months in the reformatory. He escaped from the reformatory August 5, 1928. He was recaptured, and on September 25, 1928, was sentenced by the district court for Lancaster county, on his plea of guilty, to serve a period of five years, to commence at the termination of his original 18 months’ sentence from Dodge county. The term of that 18 months’ sentence expired October 8, 1929, at which time his five-year sentence began to operate; he being- given a new number. Under the rules of the board of pardons, he was paroled July 1, 1932, having under the rules 11 months and 24 days of the five-year sentence still to serve.

The applicant was arrested in Douglas county, charged with the crime of robbery, on October 20, 1932, and was tried before Honorable Arthur C. Thomsen, district judge of Douglas county, and the jury found him guilty as charged, and thereupon the following judgment'was pronounced: “It is therefore considered, ordered and adjudged by the court that the defendant John Ulrich (impleaded with Arthur Costello, alias Arthur McDaniel) be taken hence to the Douglas county jail, and the?/ thence within thirty (30) days and as early as practicable, he be taken by the sheriff of Douglas county, to the Nebraska State Peni[686]*686tentiary at Lincoln, Nebraska, and there imprisoned at hard labor for a period of nine (9) years from there afterwards the 9th day of October A. D. 1932, no part of which said period of time, by virtue of this sentence to be spent in solitary confinement, and that he pay the costs of this prosecution, taxed at $-.”

In other words, it was arbitrarily stated in the sentence given him in Douglas county that his nine-year sentence should begin 11 days prior to the day on which it was pronounced, and this nine-year sentence with good time allowances was entirely served on October 21, 1938.

The board of control ordered his release on October 21, 1938, from the sentence of nine years imposed upon him in Douglas county, but did not order his release from the sentence imposed him of five years in Lancaster county, and Warden O’Grady further replies that the board of pardons understood the law to be that he should still serve out that part of his sentence he had not served when his parole was revoked on July 13, 1932.

The return to the writ of habeas corpus of Warden O’Grady further sets out that on July 1, 1932, before the termination of said five-year sentence from Lancaster county, the said John Ulrich was again paroled from the Nebraska state penitentiary. But said parole was revoked, a copy of said revocation being attached as exhibit B, which is an order of Charles W. Bryan, Frank Marsh, and C. A. Sorensen, who were the board of pardons, which order, entered July 25, 1932, sets out his release on parole July 1, 1932, and that on July 13, 1932, he engaged with'others in the commission of several felonies in Dodge, Douglas, and other counties in Nebraska, and that the parole granted the said John Ulrich on July 1,1932, is revoked, “and it is hereby ordered that the said John Ulrich be returned to the penitentiary to be there further dealt with under the aforesaid sentence as the law in such case provides, July 13, 1932, is hereby fixed as the date of delinquency under this parole.”

It thus appears that since October 21, 1938, he has been serving time on the 11 months and 24 days left on the old [687]*687five-year sentence from Lancaster county, from which he had been paroled and broke his parole.

Counsel for the appellant bases his petition for writ of habeas corpus upon section 29-2628, Comp. St. 1929, which provides: “If any prisoner in the judgment of the board shall violate the conditions of his parole or release as fixed by the board of pardons, he shall thereafter be treated as an escaped prisoner owing services to the state and shall be liable, when arrested, to serve out the unexpired term of his maximum possible imprisonment, and the time from the date of his declared delinquency to the date of his arrest, shall not be counted as any portion or part of time served; and any prisoner at large upon parole or conditional release, who shall commit a fresh crime and upon conviction thereof shall be sentenced anew to the penitentiary, shall be subject to serve the second sentence after the first sentence is served or annulled; said second sentence to commence from the termination of .his liability upon the first or former sentence.”

These questions have arisen in Nebraska quite frequently, the facts in each case being different. In Brott v. Fenton, 120 Neb. 792, 235 N. W. 449, in which a habeas corpus petition was denied, Brott was sentenced to the penitentiary from Lancaster county for two years and six months for chicken stealing. He was released on bond pending proceedings in error to the supreme court. He went to Hall county, where he stole a calf, and was sentenced to three years in the penitentiary, which sentence he commenced serving December 19, 1927. Nine days later the supreme court affirmed the conviction for chicken stealing in Lancaster county, and issued its mandate. Brott completed serving the Hall county sentence on April 11, 1930. The petition for habeas corpus was denied.

In the case of In re Walsh, 37 Neb. 454, 55 N. W. 1075, the prisoner was sentenced to imprisonment on May 9, 1892, for one year and sentenced to an additional one year upon the second count of the information, the sentence providing that the second sentence should begin on May 9, 1893. The [688]*688first term of imprisonment by good conduct was cut to ten months, at which time his second term had not commenced to run. The prisoner was ordered discharged on a writ of habeas corpus, and it was held that the second judgment of imprisonment was illegal, and the prisoner was entitled to his discharge, the second sentence being also unauthorized, since both counts charged only one crime. It was held that, where different counts charge the same offense, in case of a conviction on each count, it is the rule to render a single sentence upon all counts for the one entire offense. 11 Neb. Law Bulletin, 458.

In such a case, the judgment should not fix the day on which each successive term of imprisonment should begin, but should simply direct that each successive term should commence at the expiration of the one imposed by the previous sentence. Brown v. State, 115 Neb. 366, 213 N. W. 339.

In Riggs v. Sutton, 113 Neb. 556, 203 N. W. 999, a wife brought habeas corpus to discharge her husband from confinement. On December 8, 1923, on a liquor charge he was sentenced to the county jail for 60 days, and the court fixed the supersedeas bond in the sum of $500. As he never gave the supersedeas bond, and did not prosecute error, the condition of the suspension of the sentence was never complied with.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
287 N.W. 81, 136 Neb. 684, 1939 Neb. LEXIS 143, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ulrich-v-ogrady-neb-1939.