## Facts

- Woody Ruffin was convicted of a felony and sentenced to confinement in the Virginia penitentiary.
- A 1870 statute allowed penitentiary convicts to be hired out for railroad work; Ruffin was hired to work on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in Bath County, Virginia.
- While working there on July 10, 1870, Ruffin allegedly killed Lewis F. Swats during an attempted escape.
- Swats was a guard employed by the private railroad contractors, not a penitentiary or Commonwealth officer.
- Virginia statutes governing penitentiary convicts permitted prosecution of crimes committed by convicts in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond, even if the act occurred elsewhere.

## Issues

1. Whether a penitentiary convict hired out in another county, accused of committing a crime there, must be tried in that county (or by a jury drawn from that county) rather than in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond by a Richmond jury.
2. Whether state constitutional trial-right guarantees (including locality/vicinage concepts) apply to convicted felons serving penitentiary sentences to the same extent as to non-incarcerated persons.

## Decision

- Ruffin was indicted in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond for first-degree murder, tried by a Richmond jury, convicted, and sentenced to death.
- The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed.
- The court held the Richmond venue and Richmond jury were authorized for crimes committed by penitentiary convicts, even when the act occurred in another county while the convict was hired out.
- The court rejected Ruffin’s claims that he was constitutionally entitled to trial in Bath County or to a Bath County jury.

## Legal Principles

- A penitentiary convict hired out to work in a distant county may be tried for a crime committed there in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond by a jury summoned from that city, when statutes so provide.
- The state Bill of Rights’ trial-right guarantees were treated as directed to “freemen,” not convicted felons; a convicted felon possessed only those procedural rights conferred by statute.
- For venue and custody purposes, a felon sentenced to the penitentiary remained, in contemplation of law, “in the penitentiary” until the sentence expired or a pardon issued, even if physically working elsewhere under a hiring arrangement.
- Statutory governance of penitentiary convicts could supersede ordinary locality-based trial expectations for non-incarcerated defendants.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Ruffin’s conviction and death sentence, holding that a convict hired out for labor remained legally within the penitentiary system and could be tried in Richmond under penitentiary statutes, and that constitutional trial-right protections were not applied to convicted felons beyond what statutes granted.


Ruffin v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. 790 (Va. 1871)