Opinion
No. 36313
Decided May 18, 1960.
Habeas corpus — Not available as substitute for adequate remedy by appeal — Forgery.
IN HABEAS CORPUS.
Petitioner was charged with forging an operator's license and with uttering or publishing a forged operator's license, was tried and convicted on both counts, and was sentenced to the penitentiary.
He seeks his release from the London Prison Farm, to which he was transferred, by this proceeding in habeas corpus instituted in this court. He claims as grounds for his release that the indictment was defective and did not charge an offense, that an operator's license will not support a forgery charge, and that the section under which petitioner was convicted does not cover motor vehicle operators' licenses.
Mr. Claude Bryant, in propria persona. Mr. Mark McElroy, attorney general, and Mr. Aubrey Wendt, for respondent.
The trial court had jurisdiction of the subject matter and of the person of petitioner. Petitioner could have objected to alleged irregularities in the indictment before trial, had an adequate remedy by way of appeal from the judgment of conviction to review the other alleged errors or irregularities of which he here complains and cannot now have such a review by a proceeding in habeas corpus.
Petitioner remanded to custody.
WEYGANDT, C.J., ZIMMERMAN, TAFT, MATTHIAS, BELL, HERBERT and PECK, JJ., concur.