Opinion of the Court. cution of the said sentence on the said convict, at such time and place as the said judge may appoint and direct in the said warrant, which the sheriff shall be bound to do accordingly. And the said judge shall cause the said new warrant, and other proceedings in the case to be entered on the minutes of the said Superior Court." The provisions of this section are a reproduction in the Code of prior legislation (Georgia Acts of 1855-6, p. 36; 1859, p. 50): Georgia Code (1882), 4666 a; Code (1895), 1048. Lunatics, how disposed of: "When any person shall, after conviction of a capital crime, become insane, and shall be so declared in accordance with the provisions of section 4666 of the code, it shall be the duty of the judge to certify the fact, and the said convict shall be received into the lunatic asylum, there to be safely and securely kept, and treated as other adjudged insane persons." The provisions of this section are a reproduction in the Code of an act passed in 1874. (Georgia Acts of 1874, p. 30.) The above sections, as existing in the Georgia Code of 1882, were cited by the Supreme Court of Georgia as controlling, and the brief for the plaintiff in error also states this to be the case. We have given the corresponding sections in the Code of 1895, although such sections as reproduced in the latter Code are in three sections and are somewhat altered in phraseology, but not so as to be material to the issue before us. In the argument at bar the contention was that these sections of the Georgia law afforded an opportunity to investigate the question of the insanity of a person convicted of crime only when the suggestion of insanity was made after conviction and sentence, and, therefore, that the statutes furnished no means of testing the question of insanity arising after conviction and before sentence, and this fact, it was asserted, amounted to a denial of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The construction of the statutes upon which this proposition was predicated is as follows: Although the text of section 4666 a, which provides for an investigation into the question Opinion of the Court. of insanity, when "any person shall, after conviction of a capital crime, become insane," is conceded to be broad enough to cover all cases arising between conviction and sentence, yet, the words "after conviction" it is urged should be construed as applying only to insanity arising after conviction and sentence, because section 4666 provides only for an investigation "after the convict shall have been sentenced." That is to say, the construction contended for, instead of treating the two sections of the code as in pari materia, and construing them together so as to give effect to both, restricts and limits the natural and obvious meaning of the later statute by incorporating into it the provisions of the earlier one. If the contention that the words "after sentence" in the earlier statute only apply to cases where insanity is suggested after sentence, and not to those where it is claimed to have arisen between conviction and sentence, then the provision in the subsequent section, extending the remedy to cases arising "after conviction," cured the omission, if any there was, in the first statute. Instead, then, of construing the earlier as controlling the later statute, the elementary rule of interpretation would require that the later be considered as amplifying and providing for the thing omitted in the prior statute. While these conclusions are obvious, we are nevertheless relieved from the necessity of so deciding, since the opinion of the Supreme Court of the State in the case before us expressly holds that "the provisions of the code relating to inquisitions in such matters are sufficiently comprehensive to cover all cases where the alleged insanity begins at any time after the rendition of the verdict of guilty." We follow the interpretation given by the Supreme Court of the State of Georgia to the statutes of that State. Indeed, the question which arises on the record does not require a consideration of what would be due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment where insanity was suggested between verdict and sentence, or even at the time of sentence. This results from the fact that the suggestion of insanity relied on was made, not at the time of sentence, but long after the sentence had been imposed. As stated, the bill Opinion of the Court. of exceptions recites that the accused had been sentenced to death at the term of court where the verdict of guilty was found, that is, in July, 1895, and that when called into court again, in June, 1896, it was for a resentence upon the verdict, because of the previous sentence "having been regularly and legally superseded by the order of the court." In the opinion of the Supreme Court of Georgia in this case it finds this fact and holds that under the Georgia statutes the proceeding had in June, 1896, although called a resentence, was in legal effect but a fixing of a new date for the execution of the previous sentence, the date fixed in the prior sentence having expired. In other words, the Supreme Court of Georgia holds that the prior sentence remained in force, and that the subsequent action of the court was but a mere fixing of the date for its execution. We take notice of the finding of fact, Egan v. Hart, 165 U. S. 188, and follow the legal conclusions of the court, and are bound by them, since they involve but a construction by the court of last resort of the State of Georgia of the statutes of that State regulating the effect of a resentence in case the date fixed in a former sentence has lapsed. From these considerations it follows that the only question which we are called upon to determine is whether, after a regular conviction and sentence, a suggestion of a then existing insanity is made, it is necessary, in order to constitute due process of law, that the question so presented should be tried by a jury in a judicial proceeding surrounded by all the safeguards and requirements of a common law jury trial, and even although by the state law full and adequate administrative and quasi judicial process is created for the purpose of investigating the suggestion. Without analysis of the contention, it might well suffice to demonstrate its obvious unsoundness by pointing to the absurd conclusion which would result from its establishment. If it were true that at common law a suggestion of insanity after sentence, created on the part of a convict an absolute right to a trial of this issue by a judge and jury, then (as a finding that insanity did not exist at one time would not be the thing adjudged as to its non-existence at another) it would be wholly at the Opinion of the Court. will of a convict to suffer any punishment whatever, for the necessity of his doing so would depend solely upon his fecundity in making suggestion after suggestion of insanity, to be followed by trial upon trial. Nor is this so extreme a possibility that it should not be supposed, since in the argument at bar it was admitted that the sentence first imposed was suspended because the record was taken to the Supreme Court of Georgia, where the question of the existence of insanity was either directly or indirectly adversely decided. Blackstone, it is urged, supports the proposition that at common law there was an imperative duty, on the suggestion of the insanity of a convict, to try the issue by judge and jury. The text to which reference is made is as follows (4 Bl. Com. 24, 25): Also, if a man in his sound memory commits a capital offence, and before arraignment for it, he becomes mad, he ought not to be arraigned for it; because he is not able to plead to it with that advice and caution that he ought. And if, after he has pleaded, the prisoner becomes mad, he shall not be tried; for how can he make his defence? If, after he be tried and found guilty, he lose his senses before judgment, judgment shall not be pronounced; and if, after judgment, he becomes of non-sane memory, execution shall be stayed: for peradventure, says the humanity of the English law, had the prisoner been of sound memory he might have alleged something in stay of judgment or execution." And 1 Hale P. C. 34, 35, is referred to as being to the same effect. But nothing in these citations is pertinent to the issue under consideration. It is agreed that at common law an insane person was not to suffer punishment. The question here is, what, after conviction and sentence, was the method by which the existence of insanity in the convict was to be ascertained when a suggestion of such insanity was made. In speaking on this subject, Blackstone says (Book 4, p. 395): "Another cause of regular reprieve is, if the defendant becomes non compos between the judgment and the award of execution for regularly, as was formerly observed, though a man be compos when he commits a capital crime, yet if he Opinion of the Court. becomes non compos after, he shall not be indicted; if after indictment, he shall not be convicted; if after conviction, he shall not receive judgment; if after judgment, he shall not be ordered for execution: for 'furiosus solo furore punitur,' and the law knows not that he might have offered some reason, if in his senses, to have stayed these respective proceedings. It is, therefore, an invariable rule, when any time intervenes between the attainder and the award of execution, to demand of the prisoner what he hath to allege why execution should not be awarded against him: and if he appears to be insane, the judge, in his discretion, may, and ought to, reprieve him." In other words, by the common law, if, after conviction and sentence, a suggestion of insanity was made, not that the judge to whom it was made should, as a matter of right, proceed to summon a jury and have another trial, but that he should take such action as, in his discretion, he deemed best. In Laros v. Commonwealth, 84 Penn. St. 200, where a suggestion of insanity was made after verdict, the court said. (p. 210): "The last three assignments of error raise a single question upon the power of the court to inquire by inspection and per testes into the insanity of the prisoner since verdict. We have no precedents in this State, known to us, how the inquiry shall be conducted when such a plea in bar of sentence is put in. It seems to us, however, that no right of trial by jury is involved in the question. A jury having found a verdict against the plea of insanity when set up as a defence to conviction, subsequent insanity cannot be set up in disproof of the conviction. The plea at this stage is only an appeal to the humanity of the court to postpone the punishment until a recovery takes place, or as a merciful dispensation. "The rights of the prisoner as an offender on trial for an offence are not involved. He has had the benefit of a jury trial, and it is now the court only which must be satisfied on the score of humanity. If the right of trial by jury exist at all, it must exist at all times, no matter how often the plea is repeated alleging insanity occurring since the last verdict. Such a right is inconsistent with the due administration of |