In Re Parsons

Application for a writ of habeas corpus. The petitioner is now being imprisoned in the state prison under a commitment issued out of the superior court in and for the county of Imperial, which shows that he was charged in said court with “the crime of felony, to-wit: sex perversion,” and upon arraignment entered a plea of “guilty of the offense charged in the information.” The commitment then reads: “That, whereas, the said H. G. Parsons having been duly convicted in this court of the crime of felony— sex perversion, it is therefore Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed, that the said H. G. Parsons be punished by imprisonment at San Quentin, in the State Prison, of the State of California, for the term of not more than fifteen years.”

Petitioner contends that the “sentence and judgment are void for the following reasons: (1) because the same fixes or names the maximum penalty, and (2) because the same does not name the felony offense with such particularity as would enable the State Prison Board to determine what the minimum and maximum terms of the imprisonment for the offense of which petitioner was convicted consisted of.”

In re-establishing section 288a of the Penal Code (Stats.…