State v. Proctor

• Decision Date: 20 December 1886
• Parties: STATE v. PROCTOR.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

2 S.W. 472

90 Mo. 334

STATE v. PROCTOR.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

December 20, 1886.

1. CRIMINAL LAW — STATUTORY OFFENSE — OBSTRUCTING HIGHWAY — REPEAL OF STATUTE — OFFENSE COMMITTED PREVIOUS TO REPEAL — REV. ST. MO. 1879, § 3151; ACTS MO. 1883, PAGE 170, § 60.

Under section 3151, Rev. St. Mo. 1879, providing that no offense committed prior to the repeal of any statute shall be affected by such repeal, but the trial and punishment of such offense shall be had in all respects as if the statute remained in full force, one charged with obstructing a public highway in April, 1883, may be proceeded against by indictment, under the act of 1879, repealed in 1883, (Acts 1883, p. 170, § 60.)

2. WAYS — OBSTRUCTION OF — DEDICATION — ACCEPTANCE — MISSOURI ACT OF 1879; ACTS MO. 1883, PAGE 170, § 60.

When the owner of any tract of land, in fencing it, leaves a strip of land for a public road, which is traveled, worked, and repaired as such for 10 years, it becomes a public road, for the willful obstruction of which an indictment will lie, if the offense was committed before the repeal (Acts Mo. 1883, p. 170, § 60) of the act of 1879 making the obstruction of a highway a penal offense.¹

Appeal from circuit court, Monroe county.

Indictment for obstructing a public road.

The Attorney General, for the State. Bristow & Lighter, for appellant, Proctor.

NORTON, J.

Defendant was tried in the circuit court of Monroe county, and convicted, and fined $20, under an indictment charging him with obstructing a public road in said county. From this judgment he has appealed, and insists by his counsel that, inasmuch as defendant was indicted in April, 1883, under the law as it stood in the Revision of 1879, and inasmuch as the law of 1879 was repealed by an act of the legislature in 1883, (Acts 1883, p. 170, § 60,) having no saving clause as respects penalties for past offenses, that for that reason the court erred in overruling his objection to the introduction of any evidence under the indictment. The point thus made is fully answered by section 3151, Rev. St., which is as follows: "No offense committed, and no fine, penalty, or forfeiture incurred, previous to the time when any statutory provision shall be repealed, shall be affected by such repeal; but the trial and punishment of all such offenses, and the recovery of such fines, penalties, and forfeitures, shall be had in all respects as if the provision had remained in full force."

The court, by its instructions...