Johnston

The appellant, confined to the United States penitentiary at Alcatraz Island, California, under a sentence of life imprisonment imposed after entry of judgment of conviction for violation of the Lindbergh Law, 47 Stat. 326 , 18 U.S.C.A. § 408a, petitioned the court below for a writ of habeas corpus, and the petition was denied. From the order denying his petition, Bates appeals. The appellant contends, in his petition for the issuance of the writ, that the statute under which he was convicted was unconstitutional and void by reason of the fact that said statute, as written at the time of his conviction, did not fix a maximum penalty for violation thereof. The statute, the constitutionality of which is doubted by Bates, at time of sentence read in part as follows: “That whoever shall knowingly transport or cause to be transported, or aid or abet in transporting, in interstate or foreign commerce, any person who shall have been unlawfully seized, confined, inveigled, decoyed, kid-naped, abducted, or carried away by any means whatsoever and held for ransom or reward shall, upon conviction, be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for such term of years as the court, in its…