Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/173

 UNITED STATES V. WATKINDS. 161 �ally by imprisonment in the penitentiary, was sentenced upon a conviction for felony within the meaning of the abqve defi- nitionj although, being under 16 years of age, he was, in pursuance of a special statute, sentenced to a house of refuge for juvenile delinquents instead of the penitentiary, and therefore that he was within the purview of the statute pro- hibiting persons from testifying as witnesses who had been "sentenced upon a conviction for felony. " To the same effect is Andretv v. Dieterich, le Wend. 34; Peabody v. Fenton, 3 Barb. Ch. 462; Fassett v. Smith, 23 N. Y. 255. �Indeed, the proposition that a crime which may be pun- ished by imprisonment in the penitentiary — a crime which is liable to such punishment — is made punishable therebyj is so self -evident that it hardly admits of argument. �The conviction of the defendant of an assault with a dan- gerous weapon was had by and upon bis plea of guilty to the indictment charging him therewith. Thenceforth he stood convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment in the pen- itentiary, and the liability to such punishment and not the punishment actually inflicted is the circumstance which con- trola the effect of the conviction in this respect. And the subsequent action of the court in giving judgment upon such conviction could not change the nature or efifect thereof. �By virtue of section 3 of art. 2 of the constitution, as a consequence of this conviction, the defendant then and thereby forfeited the privilege of an ejector, and thereafter had no. lawf ul right to vote at any election in Oregon. �And even if it were conceded that the term "conviction" is used in the constitution in the sense of or so as ta include the sentence of the court, still the conclusion would be the same. It would nevertheless be true that the defendant was convicted of and sentenced for a crime which was then pun- ishable by law by imprisonment in the penitentiary. The fact that he was otherwise punished for it is entirely imma- terial, because the forfeiture of his privilege as an eleotor did not depend upon the kind or measure of punishment actually inflicted, but the kind that might have been — the kind that �v.6,no.2— 11 ��� �