Matter of Application of Goldsworthy

The petitioner was convicted by a jury in the superior court of Sacramento County of the crime of contributing to the dependency of one Beulah Willard, a minor female child, under the age of twenty-one years, and was thereupon sentenced by said court to an imprisonment of one year in the county jail of said county.

He contends that the information upon which he was prosecuted and convicted wholly fails to state a public offense or any crime known to the law, that the judgment of imprisonment imposed upon him is, therefore, absolutely void, and he in consequence entitled to his release from the custody of the sheriff of Sacramento County, by whom he is now restrained of his liberty by the authority of the commitment issued on said judgment, and restored to his liberty through the writ of habeas corpus. To achieve that object he has inaugurated this proceeding.

The information is based on the provisions of section 26 of the Juvenile Court Law, [Stats. 1911, p. 658], and its allegations read in part as follows: “That one Beulah Willard, at the said eountj^ of Sacramento, . . . and before the filing of this information, was then and there a female minor child under the age of…