Opinion
22410.
SUBMITTED MARCH 9, 1964.
DECIDED APRIL 13, 1964.
Habeas corpus. Reidsville City Court. Before Judge Carr.
William S. Golden, pro se. Eugene Cook, Attorney General, Albert Sidney Johnson, Assistant Attorney General, B. Daniel Dubberly, Jr., Deputy Assistant Attorney General, contra.
The sentence under which the petitioner was held being based upon a valid verdict it was not error in a habeas corpus proceeding to refuse to discharge him.
SUBMITTED MARCH 9, 1964 — DECIDED APRIL 13, 1964.
The plaintiff in error, William S. Golden, excepts to an order refusing to discharge him from the custody of R. P. Balkcom, Jr., Warden of the Georgia State Prison. In his petition Golden alleged that on May 23, 1956, he was tried in Glynn Superior Court for murder; that the jury returned the following verdict: "We the jury find the defendant William S. Golden guilty of voluntary manslaughter and set the penalty at twenty years"; that when the verdict was published the court instructed the foreman of the jury to insert in the verdict before the words "twenty years" the words "not less nor more than." Sentence was thereupon entered upon the amended verdict.
It is contended that the verdict as first returned by the jury was void, in that under Code Ann. § 27-2502 the jury was required to fix a minimum and maximum sentence. There is no merit in this contention. As stated in Johnson v. State, 154 Ga. 806 ( 115 S.E. 642), "Where a defendant is convicted of the offense of shooting at another, and the jury fixes his sentence at three years, it is not error to overrule a motion to arrest the judgment on the ground that the verdict does not fix a maximum and minimum sentence. Giving to the verdict a reasonable intendment and construction . . . it is equivalent to one fixing the maximum and minimum punishment at three years."
Even if it be conceded that the court had no authority to instruct the jury to write in the verdict the words "not less nor more than" it was not such an irregularity as would render the verdict and judgment void and allow it to be attacked by a writ of habeas corpus. Sanders v. Aldredge, 189 Ga. 69 ( 5 S.E.2d 371); Smith v. Balkcom, 217 Ga. 51 ( 120 S.E.2d 617).
The court properly remanded the prisoner to the custody of the warden.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.