Joseph McKenna, In re Spencer — Opinion of the Court
“ And surely even a defendant in a criminal case cannot complain if, in the tribunals in which he is arraigned for crime, he has opportunity to deny the crime, require its proof, resist unjust or excessive punishment, and have a review of all rulings through the successive state tribunals, and finally in the ultimate court of review upon questions under the Constitution of the United States. ”
Joseph McKenna, In re Spencer — Opinion of the Court
“ If defenses may be omitted at trials, rights of review omitted, and yet availed of through habeas corpus, the whole course of criminal justice will be deranged, and, it may be, defeated. This is the practical result in the case at bar. Petitioners contend for a discharge, having fulfilled what they consider the legal part of their sentences, but which is manifestly below what, in the law of the state, is fixed for their crime. And, illustrating their arguments, petitioners told us of other cases which are waiting to come forward with an appeal for like remedy and jail delivery. ”
Joseph McKenna, In re Spencer — Opinion of the Court
“ Petitioners will contend that the maximum sentence which could have been inflicted upon them, if the court selected the alternative imprisonment rather than the simple imprisonment, as provided in the act of 1860, would have been 'not less than six months nor more than two years at separate and solitary confinement, at labor.'Petitioners, however, were sentenced each to pay a fine of $500 and costs, and to be imprisoned for an indeterminate period, the minimum of which should be eighteen months and the maximum two years. ”
