Hjackson v. The State Of Ga.
| Decision Date | 31 August 1852 |
| Docket Number | No. 1.,1. |
| Citation | 12 Ga. 1 |
| Parties | Samuel H.Jackson, plaintiff in error. vs. The State of Georgia, defendant. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Indictment for carrying concealed weapons. Motion in arrest of judgment, in Coweta Superior Court. Decided by Judge Hill, March Term, 1852.
The plaintiff in error was placed upon his trial, and found guilty of " carrying concealed weapons, " at the March Term, 1852, of Coweta Superior Court. On the trial, the offence wasproved to have been committed on the 15th day of January, 1851, by the defendant carrying a bowie-knife, in a " concealed manner."
A motion in arrest of the judgment was made, on the ground that the Statute of 1837, making it penal "to carry concealed weapons, " was repealed by the Act of 1851, which was enacted after the finding of the indictment, and before trial and conviction thereon.*
The Court overruled the motion, and counsel for the defendant excepted.
Sims & Burch, for plaintiff in error.
Solicitor General Tidwell, for defendant.
By the Court.—Lumpkin, J. delivering the opinion.
Samuel H. Jackson having been indicted in Coweta County, for carrying a bowie-knife, in a concealed manner, contrary to the provisions of the Act of 1837, passed for the purpose of protecting the people against the use of deadly weapons; and the Act under which the prosecution was instituted having been repealed, by the Legislature, in January, 1852, before the trial and conviction for the offence, the question is, could the State proceed with the case?
It is conceded that but for the provision in the Penal Code, which declares that " all crimes and offences committed, shall be prosecuted and punished under the laws in force at the time of the commission of such crime or offence, notwithstanding the repeal of such laws before such trial takes place, " that this proceeding must be abandoned. It is admitted on the other hand, that this clause in the Code, will save the case, provided it be not repealed by the Act of the last Assembly, abrogating the Statute of 1837.
The Act of 1852, re-enacts in substance, a portion of the Act of 1837; expressly repeals the Act of 1837, and declares void all laws and parts of laws which contravene its provisions. And this is the whole of it. What is there in the clause of the Penal Code continuing prosecutions under criminal Statutes, which may have been repealed, which interferes with the Act of 1852? Nothing. They are passed for a different purpose entirely, each having a specific object in view, which is totally dissimilar. The Act of 1852, was passed, as its title purports, to prohibit the sale of deadly weapons, and to prescribe the manner of carrying the same, and to punish for a violation of its provisions, and to repeal the Act of 1837. What antagonism is there, or can there be, between an Act passed for these purposes, and another which declares, that crimes shall be punished under the laws against which they are committed, notwithstanding the repeal of such laws? None whatever.
Suppose the 34th section of the Penal Code had been inserted in the Act of 1852, immediately after the clause repealingthe Act of 1837, and then the general clause had followed, repealing all laws which militated against its provisions. Would it have been imagined for a moment, that this latter clause, in general terms, would have repealed expressly or by necessary implication, the preceding reservation as to offences committed against the Act of 1837? It stands precisely upon the same footing as though this had been done. The general clause in the Penal Code, was adopted for the express purpose of doing away with the necessity of annexing such a reservation to each particular repealing Statute.
We know the mischief which this clause in the Code of 1833 was intended to remedy. There was an interregnum at one period in the administration of the criminal justice of the State; a general jail delivery; a perfect jubilee among felons, owing to an oversight in the Legislature in abolishing temporarily the Penitentiary system and then re-establishing it again, without making any provision similar to this in the Code of 1833, for the...
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Robinson v. State, s. 72265
...at the end of the Act, it merely repealed the laws and parts of laws in conflict with the Act. In this connection, see Jackson v. State, 12 Ga. 1, 3(1) (1852). Since the Act amended OCGA § 16-13-31, it can hardly be said to have repealed it. Nor did it extinguish as a crime the possession o......
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Fleming v. State
...provisions of the law existing at the time of its commission. See Patton v. State, 80 Ga. 714, 716(1), 6 S.E. 273 (1888); Jackson v. State, 12 Ga. 1, 3(1) (1852); Reynolds v. State, 3 Ga. 53, 56(1) (1847). See also Hicks v. State, 228 Ga.App. 235, 237(1)(b), 494 S.E.2d 342 (1997). Also, cri......
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Sadler v. State, 46227
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