People State New York v. John A. Witenski

These three defendants, all under 21 years of age, were, so it is charged, surprised in an orchard at about 10:30 p.m. in the act of stealing a half bushel of apples ""of the value"", according to the information filed by the owner of the orchard, of about $2. Sometime after midnight the three were brought before a Justice of the Peace. After brief proceedings at which none of them was represented by any attorney all of them pleaded guilty. None of them had been convicted before. Each was sentenced to imprisonment for 30 days plus a fine of $25 which meant (since none of them had money to pay the fine) a sentence of 55 days' imprisonment for each. All were taken to jail to serve their sentences. Later they retained a lawyer who took an appeal to the County Court which rejected all their contentions except as to excessiveness of sentence. The County Court modified the judgments of conviction by reducing the terms of imprisonment ""to the time already served"" which was about 7 days.