Salter v. State
Salter v. State
Opinion of the Court
The defendant was indicted and convicted of violating the prohibition law, and from the judgment he appeals.
“In all cases in which the punishment fixed by the statute is imprisonment in the penitentiary, and in which a maximum and a minimum term is prescribed, the court shall pronounce upon the defendant an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not less than the minimum and not greater than the maximum fixed by the statute for such offense.”
If, therefore, section 7620 of the Code must be read into and become a part of those sections where > the term of imprisonment is within the discretion of the judge trying the case, and the judge, exercising his discretion, *518 fixed the term at not more than two years, that would he “the punishment fixed by statute,” and if the judge trying the case, in the exercise of his discretion, fixed the punishment at hard labor for the county, that would be the punishment “fixed by the statute,” within the meaning of section 2 of the Indeterminate Sentence Act, supra. Not so, however, with statutes creating felonies and fixing punishments enacted since the adoption of the Code of 1907. They, being more recent than the Code of 1907, if repugnant thereto, are not governed by section 7620 of the Code. Bibb v. State, 83 Ala. 84-92, 3 South. 711. Section 15 of an act of the Legislature approved January 25, 1919 (Acts 1919, p. 16), makes the manufacture or distillation of whisky a felony, and fixes the punishment at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a minimum term of one year and a maximum of five years, to be fixed by the judge trying the ease. The act providing for indeterminate sentences, supra, applies to ,this class of cases, and the sentence must be in accord with the two acts supra.
The judgment is remanded, therefore, for proper sentence. Affirmed as to judgment of conviction, and remanded for proper sentence. ■
Affirmed and remanded.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Salter v. State.
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- 10 cases
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- Published