Ex parte Estrado

The petitioner is held in the custody of the chief of police of the city and county of San Francisco, under a commitment which recites an order of the police judge holding her to answer “on a charge of felony, to wit, enticing a minor away for the purpose of prostitution, committed as follows: Said Cora Estrado did in the city and county of San Francisco, on the twenty fifth day of February, 1891, willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously, take away a certain female under the age of eighteen years,” —naming her,—“of the age of seventeen years, from her father, for the purpose of prostitution.”

It is claimed that the imprisonment of the petitioner is unlawful, for two reasons: 1. Because the order recited in the commitment does not show that the father of the girl from whom she was taken had the legal care of her person; and 2. Because the evidence adduced at the examination does not show any reasonable or probable cause for holding that the petitioner is guilty of the offense charged.

The first ground is not alleged in the petition upon which the writ was issued, but is taken by way of objection to the return, and rests upon counsel’s construction of section 267 of the Penal Code,…