Ex parte Liddell

The petitioner, a boy fifteen years of age, was charged in the justice’s court of Los Angeles city township with the crime of petit larceny, and upon being arraigned, entered a plea of guilty as charged. Thereupon the court sentenced him to serve a term of one year in the Whittier Reform School.

It is claimed that the judgment is void,—1. Because the act upon which it is based is unconstitutional, the *635 legislature having failed to express the subject of the act in the title thereof; and 2. Because petitioner was not given a private examination on the question as to whether he ought to be committed to the reform school.

Section 24, article IV., of the constitution provides that “ every act shall "embrace but one subject, which subject shall be expressed in its title.” The act in question is entitled “ An act to establish a state reform school for juvenile offenders, and to make an appropriation therefor.” Section 16 provides that any boy or girl between the ages of ten and sixteen years, who has been convicted of an offense punishable by imprisonment in the county jail or penitentiary, may be committed to the state reform school for a term not less than one nor more than five…