Ex parte Nichols

The petitioner,William Nichols, asks, on a writ of habeas corpus, to be discharged, from the custody of Carl Bank, superintendent of the Preston School of Industry, situated in Amador county. He was convicted in a justice’s court of petit larceny, and, being under the age of eighteen years, the justice ad *653 judged that he was a fit subject for commitment to said school, suspended judgment, and committed him to said school until he should be twenty-one years old, unless, sooner legally discharged. The commitment was approved by the superior judge of the county, as provided by section 16 of an act entitled “An act to establish a school of industry,” approved March 11, 1889, under which act the proceedings here complained of were had-(Stats. 1889, pp. 100-06.)

Petitioner assails the constitutionality of said statute mainly upon the grounds that it is unequal in its operation, because under it an adult can be punished for petit larceny by imprisonment in the county jail for only six months, while a minor may, for the same offense, be sent to said school for a much longer period; that a justice’s court has no jurisdiction in such a case to impose imprisonment for more than six…