Ex parte Acock

The petitioner was adjudged guilty of contempt by the superior court of Sacramento County, and seeks to be discharged from custody by this proceeding, on the ground that the commitment and judgment are void. The commitment is a certified copy of the judgment. The recitals in the judgment show that on the twenty-second day of August, 1869, an action of claim and delivery was commenced by the petitioner against Salome E. Acock and Nellie T. Halsey for the recovery of some wheat and barley then in the possession of one W. K. Lindsay, as the agent of the defendants in said action; that a proper affidavit and undertaking on claim and delivery were made by the plaintiff in said action, and an order was indorsed upon said affidavit, directed to the sheriff, requiring him to take said property from the possession of the defendants; that, in pursuance of said order, said property was taken by the sheriff into his possession and held by him until the fourth day of September, 1889; that on August 30th, seven days after the service of the summons and other papers in said action upon defendant Halsey, the defendants therein executed and delivered to the sheriff an undertaking, which was…