Matter of Application of Robbins

The petitioner was convicted in the justice’s court of Red Bluff Township, Tehama County, of violating section 626f of the Penal Code, a misdemeanor, and was thereupon sentenced to pay a fine of $150.00 or he imprisoned in the county jail of said county “until said fine is paid, not exceeding 150 days.” Having failed to pay the fine he was committed to the county jail.

He now insists that the judgment of sentence is null and void, that the commitment upon which the sheriff detains him is of necessity likewise affected and that consequently he is illegally restrained of his liberty.

The section under which the petitioner was prosecuted and convicted reads: “Every person who between the first day of November and the fifteenth day of July of the following year, hunts, pursues, takes, or destroys, or has in his possession, whether taken or killed in the state of California, or shipped into the state, from any other state, territory, or foreign country, any male deer, or any deer meat,' is guilty of a misdemeanor. ’ ’

There being no punishment by said section appropriated to the offense thus denounced, section 19 of the Penal Code fixes the penalty which may be imposed in the event…