FIRST DEPARTMENT, MARCH TERM, 1875. the relator. By that it appears that it was adjudged that he should be imprisoned in the county jail during the periods mentioned and declared. The signification of the terms used as descriptive of the prison, must be determined by the circumstances under which they were used. The relator had been convicted of certain misdemeanors properly punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, and for that purpose it had been lawfully designated as the jail to which such convicts could be sent by Courts of Oyer and Terminer held in the county of New York. It must, for these reasons, have been understood as well as designed, by adjudging that the relator should be imprisoned in the county jail, that the jail was referred to in which that imprisonment could be properly made, and that was the penitentiary. This conclusion is very clearly indicated by the further circumstance, that, while the matter was still engaging the attention of the court and in process of consummation, the entry was made in its minutes, and the commitment issued expressly designating the penitentiary as the prison in which it was intended the relator was to be confined. At most, the record contained but a misdescription, which the entry in the minutes and the form of the commitment fully corrected. The law provided for his detention and punishment in the penitentiary, and that was in the end properly secured. That it may not have been done throughout in the most approved and artistic manner, presents no good reason for his discharge by means of the writ of habeas corpus. The object of the law in this respect was attained without any substantial prejudice to the relator's rights, and while that appears to be the case, he has no proper ground of complaint, arising out of the circumstance that in the record the prison he was consigned to was called the county jail instead of the penitentiary. For the offenses he had committed, he could properly be imprisoned nowhere else, and that must have been the place the court designed he should go to when the county jail was mentioned, for the process immediately following the sentence expressly consigned him there, and the law required that he should be sent there. But it is claimed in the relator's behalf, that the Court of Oyer and Terminer, in the county of New York, had no power to try him for the offenses of which he was convicted, and his confinement in the penitentiary was for that FIRST DEPARTMENT, MARCH TERM, 1875. reason unlawful. This position is supposed to be maintained by certain provisions contained in chapter 337 of the Laws of 1855. Those relied upon as being attended with that result, are found in the fifth section of the act that provides that "the Court of Special Sessions of the Peace in and for the city and county of New York, shall have power to hear, determine, and punish according to law, all complaints for misdemeanors, and shall possess exclusive jurisdiction thereof, unless the said Court of Special Sessions shall order any such complaint to be sent to the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, and unless the accused, when arrested and brought before the committing magistrate, shall elect to have his case heard and determined by the Court of General Sessions of the Peace in and for the city and county of New York." But this does not sustain the position taken on behalf of the relator. For, it is not of all misdemeanors that exclusive jurisdiction was given to the Court of Special Sessions, but only of complaints for misdemeanors. It was simply over offenses of this description, for which complaints should be made, that this exclusive jurisdiction was extended. And that included only cases commenced by complaint, a course of criminal proceeding previously well known to the laws of the State. Before this statute was enacted, the laws had provided for making complaints in criminal cases. It was simply a formal application on oath for a warrant against a person supposed to have committed some crime. It was known to the common as well as the statutory law of the State.* And when used to designate a criminal proceeding, the term complaint had a different legal signification. It formed the initiatory step in the institution of a criminal prosecution before a magistrate, and that is to be presumed to have been the legislative understanding of it, as it was used in the enactment of the law of 1855. Nothing can be found in the act itself that is inconsistent with that conclusion; and when that is the case, legal terms, made use of in the enactment of laws, are presumed to have been employed in their strict legal sense. That is a well settled rule, which has long been applied by the courts to the construction of statutes. "When technical words occur in a statute, they are to be taken in a technical sense, unless it appears that they were intended to be applied differently from their ordinary or legal * 3 R. S. (5th ed.), 993, §§ 1, 2; Barbour's Crim. Law (2d ed.), 514. 07 FIRST DEPARTMENT, MARCH TERM, 1875. acceptation. So, when legislating upon subjects relating to courts and legal process, we are to consider the legislature as speaking technically, unless, from the statute itself, it appears that they made use of the terms in a more popular sense.' Words and phrases, the meaning of which in a statute has been ascertained, are, when used in a subsequent statute, to be understood in the same sense. † According to this principle of construction, the complaints mentioned in the act of 1855, must be understood to include only those made as the foundation of an application for a warrant in the mode prescribed by the Revised Statutes; and it is only of complaints of that nature, that exclusive jurisdiction has been given to courts of Special Sessions, when they may be made for the commission of misdemeanors. This is rendered still more apparent by the provision contained in the same section, giving the accused, when arrested and brought before the committing magistrate, his election to be tried in the Court of General Sessions. This privilege or right is as extended as the complaints mentioned in the preceding portion of the section, including all cases the Special Sessions has exclusive jurisdiction to try, where that election may not be made. And it can in no case be made until the accused has been arrested and taken before a committing magistrate. The provision in substance, is, that the Court of Special Sessions shall have exclusive jurisdiction to try all complaints for misdemeanors, on which the accused shall be arrested and brought before a committing magistrate, when he does not elect to be tried in the Court of General Sessions. Taken together, that is the evident import of the provision made by the section. That it was not designed to divest the Court of Oyer and Terminer of its jurisdiction by means of its grand jury upon indictments found, is further manifested by the provision contained in the fourth section of the same act, declaring that such court may, by an order to be entered in its minutes, send all indictments for any crimes afterward brought before it, to the General Sessions for trial. This provision was not confined to felonies, or to such offenses as the Special Sessions could not try, but it was extended to all crimes, in any way brought *Sedgwick on Statutory and Const. Law, 221-223. Potter's Dwarris on Statutes, 274, and note; People v. Fleming, 2 Com., 484. 489; Clark v. City of Utica, 18 Barb., 451. FIRST DEPARTMENT, MARCH TERM, 1875. before the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Further evidence of the propriety of restricting the exclusive jurisdiction of the Special Sessions to cases of complaints made before committing magistrates, is supplied by the seventh section of the same act. For, by giving the Court of General Sessions, as it does, the power to remit fines imposed by the Court of Oyer and Terminer, in cases where imprisonment might be proper, the jurisdiction to try misdemeanors is necessarily assumed to be in that court. It is for such offenses, and for those only, that the Court of Oyer and Terminer can impose fines where imprisonment may also be proper. And they are the cases in which the General Sessions has been authorized to remit the fine, and, in lieu of it, to impose the substitution of imprisonment. Without impairing the power of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, this statute confers upon the Special Sessions the power to try all misdemeanors for which the offender may be arrested and taken by warrant before a committing magistrate, provided he does not elect to be tried in the Court of General Sessions. That is the full extent of the power given by means of it to the Court of Special Sessions. It consequently left the statute defining the jurisdiction of the Court of Oyer and Terminer in full force, and that empowered that court to hear and determine all crimes and misdemeanors, triable in the county, which might be presented by indictment.* This general authority was sufficient to include the case of the relator, as long as it was not shown, and has not been claimed, that he ever was proceeded against by complaint before any magistrate for either of the offenses of which he has been convicted. It may be assumed, as long as the contrary has not been asserted, that the proceedings in this respect were regularly instituted and prosecuted by indictment in that court; and that being the case, the court was competent to punish the relator by fine and also imprisonment in the penitentiary. It had jurisdiction to try the charges contained in the indictment, and, after the conviction of the relator, to impose punishment upon him for the offenses of which he was found guilty. It was a court of competent jurisdiction for those purposes; and the legality or propriety of its action cannot be investigated or determined upon the writ of habeas corpus. * 3 R. S. (5th ed.), 297, § 14. FIRST DEPARTMENT, MARCH TERM, 1875. The power of the court before which that writ may be returned, is fixed and defined in this State by clear and explicit statutory provisions, where the relator or applicant may be detained in custody by means of criminal proceedings against him. And by them it has been declared that "persons committed or detained by virtue of the final judgment or decree of any competent tribunal of civil or criminal jurisdiction, or by virtue of any execution issued upon such judgment or decree," shall not be entitled to prosecute the writ of habeas corpus.* And no court or officer "shall have power to inquire into the legality or justice" of any process, judgment, decree, or execution, mentioned in that section, by means of that writ. And that it shall be the duty of the court or officer forthwith to remand the applicant for the writ, if it shall appear that he is detained in custody "by virtue of the final judgment or decree of any competent court of civil or criminal jurisdiction, or of any execution issued upon such judgment or decree." The only exception made by the statute, is that in favor of persons in custody by virtue of civil process. § And that has no application to the case made in favor of the relator, for he is in custody under final criminal process, issued by a court of competent jurisdiction. According to these very plain provisions of the statute relating to the writ of habeas corpus, the court had no power on its return to make any examination or investigation into the legality of the relator's imprisonment, as long as it appeared from the return that it was under the final judgment, and by virtue of process issued to execute it, of a court of competent criminal jurisdiction. That was the end of the inquiry which could be lawfully instituted. And as soon as the fact was ascertained, it was the imperative duty of the court to recommit the relator as it did. The statute is so guarded upon this subject, that the writ of habeas corpus cannot be procured without an oath that the relator is not committed or detained by virtue of the final judgment or decree of any competent tribunal of civil or criminal jurisdiction, or of any execution issued upon the same. And that oath was taken by this relator in his application for the writ which was issued. Great care was observed in imposing such restrictions upon the + Id., 888, § 57. Id., 887, § 55. * 3 R. S. (5th ed.), 883, § 36. § Id., 887, § 56. | Id., 884, § 39. |