In Re Crawford

California Court of Appeal Oct 10, 1930 No. Docket No. 1591.Published

Before: Knight

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Holding. The court held that the act of possessing a still is necessarily included in the act of operating one, and therefore, charging both as separate offenses arising from the same transaction constitutes a single crime for which a double sentence cannot be imposed. Because the sentence for the possession count was void, the prisoner was entitled to discharge after serving the valid sentence for the operation count.

Issues

Whether the acts of possessing and operating a still, as charged in two separate counts, constitute a single offense.
Whether a double sentence for a single offense is void and subject to challenge via habeas corpus.
Whether a prisoner is entitled to discharge when the valid portion of a sentence has been fully served.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“if two separate acts constitute but a single crime, a double sentence therefor cannot be imposed. If it is, one of the sentences must necessarily be void”

KNIGHT, J.

The petitioner, E. B. Crawford, a prisoner in the state prison at San Quentin, was ordered discharged therefrom on a writ of

habeas corpus

granted by the Superior Court in and for the County of Marin. From the order made in that behalf the People have taken this appeal. (Pen. Code, sec. 1506.)

At the time the order for the writ was granted the prisoner was serving two consecutive sentences imposed by the Superior Court in and for San Bernardino County, after having entered pleas of guilty to two counts of an information charging him jointly with one Woody with having had possession of, and with having operated, a still. On the first count the sentence was that he pay a fine of $1,000 and be imprisoned in the state prison for the term prescribed by law, and a like sentence was imposed on the second count. He entered the prison on March 6, 1929, and thereafter the prison board fixed the period of his sentence on the first count at three years and the period of his sentence on the second count at one year. No order was made by the superior court that the sentences should run concurrently, and consequently they operated consecutively. (Pen. Code, sec. 669.)

Both charges were founded on a statute enacted by the' legislature in 1927, declaring it to be a felony for any person to “operate or cause to be operated or knowingly have in his possession or control any still”, etc., used or intended to be used for the manufacture or production of intoxicating liquor for beverage purposes (Stats. 1927, p. 497); and the legal ground upon which the writ was obtained was that the act of operating the still charged in the second count

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necessarily included the act of having possession of it, as charged in the first count; in other words, that the acts charged in both counts related to the same transaction and constituted but one offense; and that, therefore, the superior court was without jurisdiction to impose a double sentence for the one offense.

Briefly stated, the first point urged for reversal is that the matters set forth in the judgment-roll are legally insufficient to warrant the conclusion reached by the trial court that the acts charged in the two counts related to the same transaction. We are of the opinion that the case of

In Re Crawford

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KNIGHT, J.

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