Melville Fuller

“ The final affirmance of the judgment reached upon the second reargument rested upon the conclusion that a saving clause existed in the statutes of California, which retained the prior law in force, and justified the execution of the sentence thereunder.
The contention of counsel is that the execution of plaintiff in error as ordered would be without due process, because the amendments of 1891 repealed the former law, and left no law under which he could be executed, since the amendments could not be enforced because of their being in violation of the constitution. ”

“ Subsequently a writ of error was allowed by one of the justices of this court, and a motion is now made to dismiss that writ or affirm the judgment.
At the time of the commission of the alleged crime, the conviction, and the judgment, the laws of California prescribed the penalty of death for such crime, and that execution should be had not less than 30 nor more than 60 days after judgment, by the sheriff, within the walls or yard of a jail, or some convenient private place in the county. ”

“ On that argument it was assumed, and the opinion of the court proceeded upon the assumption, that the amendments stood entirely without a saving clause, either in the amendments themselves, or in the general statutory law. Subsequently the attention of the court was called to section 329 of the Political Code as constituting a saving clause fully covering the amendments, and the court held that such was the effect of that section. ”