People v. Lewis

SEAWELL, J.

This appeal came to us on petition for hearing after decision by the District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division One. We adopt as a part of the opinion of this court the following portion of the opinion of the District Court of Appeal with respect to the questions that are involved on the appeal. It follows under quotation marks:

" Defendant was charged, in an amended information, with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor. Said defendant entered a plea of guilty to the charge, and, his application for probation being denied, was sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail for a period of two years. This appeal is from the judgment and the sentence.

‘ ‘

Appellant contends that the ‘ sentence imposed was in excess of the time as prescribed by law, and was therefore contrary to the law’.

“The offense of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, which is, by section 21 of the Juvenile Court Act (Act 3966, Deering’s Gen. Laws) declared to be a misdemeanor, provides as a maximum punishment ‘a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than two years, or by both such fine and imprisonment’. Appellant, however, relies upon section 19a of the Penal Code,

[282]

enacted subsequently to the Juvenile Court Act, which provides that, ‘In

no case

shall any person sentenced to confinement in a county or city jail on conviction of misdemeanor, or as a condition of probation, or for

any reason,

be committed for a period in excess of one year. If, however, any county, or group of counties together should establish a penal farm, or if there be established a state institution for long-term misdemeanants, then commitment to such penal farms or such state institutions shall be for such period as the court may order within the limits prescribed by statute for the offense. ’ (Italics supplied.)

“Respondent asserts, in substance, that said section 19a is unconstitutional and void for the reason that the maximum period of confinement prescribed therein is not fixed and definite under all circumstances; that it does not fix the same maximum punishment for the same offense throughout the state; that the state Constitution provides that ‘all laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation’ (sec. 11, art. I); and that said Constitution further provides that ‘the legislature shall not pass local or special laws . . . for the punishment of crimes and misdemeanors’, and shall not pass local or special laws ‘in all other cases where a general law can be made applicable’.”