In Re Huddleson

The separate cases present a single common issue: the constitutionality of subdivision (2) of section 647a of the Penal Code. This subdivision provides: “Every person who loiters about any school or public place at or near which children attend or normally congregate is a vagrant, and is punishable by a fine of not exceeding five hundred dollars ($500) or by imprisonment in the county jail for not exceeding six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.’ ’

In No. 4488 defendant Huddleson entered a plea of guilty to a complaint filed in the Municipal Court for the City and County of San Francisco charging him with a violation of the foregoing subdivision. The court granted six months’ probation apparently imposing as a condition of probation 10 days’ imprisonment in the county jail. (Pen. Code, §§ 1203, 1203.1.) Subsequently probation was revoked and defendant was sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail for six months. Thereafter, on September 20, 1963, defendant filed in the court below a petition for writ of habeas corpus. He alleged that his imprisonment under section 647a, subdivision (2), was unlawful because said subdivision was unconstitutional by reason of being…