Summary
In Bourgoyne v. York, 28 Conn. Sup. 424, 425, 265 A.2d 344, the crime charged involved a possible maximum penalty of three years and the Superior Court held that, since the Circuit Court could not impose a criminal sentence exceeding one year, the indeterminate commitment was invalid beyond that maximum.
Summary of this case from Collins v. YorkOpinion
File No. 35290
A sentence in excess of what the statutes permit is not invalid in its entirety but only as to the portion exceeding the authority therein granted. The plaintiff's indeterminate sentence to the state farm for women for obtaining money by false pretenses was consequently invalid only as to the portion in excess of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court to imprison for a period of not more than one year.
Memorandum filed August 1, 1968
Memorandum of decision in petition for habeas corpus.
Joseph D. Harbaugh, of New Haven, for the petitioner.
Robert K. Killian, attorney general, and Stephen J. O'Neill, assistant attorney general, for the respondent.
The petitioner was found guilty in the Circuit Court of two counts of obtaining money by false pretenses (General Statutes § 53-360) and was given an indeterminate sentence to the Connecticut state farm for women on each count.
Jurisdiction of the Circuit Court is limited to "a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or imprisonment for not more than one year or both." General Statutes § 54-1a. Claim is made that under General Statutes § 17-360 (now § 18-65) the maximum term of the commitment is three years and that this determines jurisdiction.
Any sentence the effect of which is to imprison the petitioner for a period exceeding one year is beyond the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.
While the sentence in this case can be in excess of the jurisdictional power of the Circuit Court, it is not invalid in its entirety but only as to that portion which exceeds the statutory authority of one year. United States v. Pridgeon, 153 U.S. 48, 62.