Scott

The defendant was convicted of the crime of rape, committed on or about the twenty-eighth day of June, 1917, upon a female whose age was more than eighteen years. According to section 264 of the Penal Code, that crime is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not more than fifty years. According to a statute which became effective on the twenty-seventh day of July, 1917, the Penal Code was amended by adding thereto a new section, numbered 1168, wherein it is provided that “every person convicted of a public offense, for which public offense punishment by imprisonment in any reformatory or the state prison is now prescribed by law, . . . shall be sentenced to be confined in the state prison, but the court in imposing such sentence shall not fix the term or duration of the period of imprisonment.” It was further provided that the period of such confinement shall not exceed the maximum or be less than the minimum term of imprisonment provided by law for the public offense of which such person was convicted. Pursuant to the verdict rendered against the defendant in this case, the superior court, on the eighteenth day of September, 1917, ordered and adjudged that the defendant…