Fleet v. State

Alvey, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This case has been in this Court before upon petition and error assigned, which was dismissed, upon the ground of delay in filing the petition, and because it did not appear that there had been any final judgment entered upon the verdict of guilty. The petition in error was dismissed by this Court on the 20th of February, 1891. After the dismissal of the case from this Court, the Court below, on the 29th of April, 1891, sentenced the traverser to confinement in the county jail until October léth, 1891.

The question of the validity of this sentence, as to the period of time is not complained of as error, and the State is not seeking to correct the judgment. But upon the final judgment being rendered, the traverser filed a second petition in error, and has brought the case into this Court a second time, upon suggestion of error in holding him liable to prosecution at all. The traverser was indicted under the election law, (Code, Art. 33, sec. 55,) for falsely personating another person and attempting to vote in the name of that person, at the general election of November, 1889, the traverser himself not being entitled to vote. To this indictment he filed a special plea, alleging that the section or provision of the statute under which the indictment had been found had been repealed, by the Act of 1890, ch. 538; and that, therefore, he was not subject to prosecution for an offence prescribed by a statute that had been