Ex parte Voll

By the Court, Wallace, J.: Upon petition for writ of habeas corpus.

It appears by the petition filed in this case that the prisoner is now detained at the Penitentiary by the Warden, pursuant to the judgment of the District Court of the Fifteenth Judicial District, adjudging him to suffer certain imprisonment there as a punishment for the crime of manslaughter, of which he had been convicted in that Court. It is also averred in the petition that from thát judgment the prisoner has taken an appeal to this Court, which is yet undetermined, and that he is pecuniarily able to give bail for his appearance if he should be permitted to do so.

The statute (Cr. Pr. Act, Sec. 509) provides that a person charged with such an offense as manslaughter may be admitted to bail before conviction, “as a matter of right,” but (Sec. 512) after conviction “as a matter of discretion” merely.

If we are to consider this application as made to our discretion under the statute, the petition is insufficient, in that it sets forth no fact or circumstance whatever upon which it would be possible for us to exercise an intelligent discretion in determining the application. It is not averred, for instance, that any injustice has been done the prisoner in the course of the judicial proceedings had in the District Court; nor that any error of law intervened to his prejudice [31]on his trial; nor that it is hoped that the judgment of conviction appearing to have been rendered against him. will, for any reason, be disturbed here. It is not even stated that the appeal appearing to have been taken was taken in good faith; or that it will be prosecuted to a final determination in this Court. For these and like reasons, not necessary to be stated in detail, the petitioner has not brought the case within the statutory requirements concerning applications for bail after conviction of the crime of manslaughter.

The argument, however, which was made in support of the petition denies the constitutionality of the statute in so far as it enacts that a conviction already had shall take away the right to bail, and leave it a question to be determined by the mere discretion of the Court, upon the facts appearing in the particular case. In support of this view the Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 7) is cited. Its language is as follows: “ All persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offenses, when the proof is evident, or the presumption great.”