In Re Koester

The petitioner is a prisoner confined in the state prison at Folsom, under a judgment of sentence for an indeterminate term, rendered by the superior court in and for the city and county of San Francisco on the twenty-fifth day of February, 1920, for the crime of the forgery of a telegraphic money order. Claiming that his restraint under said judgment is illegal and void, he has applied to this court for his release from the custody of the warden of said prison through the writ of habeas corpus. The ground upon which he bases the contention that he is illegally restrained of his liberty may be gathered from the language of the petition for the writ, as follows:

[1] Briefly stated, the specific contention is that, the petitioner, being, at the time of the alleged commission of the crime for which he is now suffering punishment and also at the time of his prosecution for and conviction thereof, a soldier in the army of the United States, in time of war, the jurisdiction to try him for the said crime was exclusively in the military department of the government, unless jurisdiction of his person was yielded by the military to the civil authorities for that purpose, and that,…