In re Clayton

• Decision Date: 15 December 1890
• Citation: 21 A. 1005,59 Conn. 510
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: In re CLAYTON.

21 A. 1005

59 Conn. 510

In re CLAYTON.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Dec. 15, 1890.

Application for writ of habeas corpus by John M. Clayton, committed to jail for contempt of court under Sess. Laws Conn. 1889, c. 167, providing that if a person be found guilty of intoxication, and refuses on request of the prosecuting officer to disclose under oath when, where, and from whom he procured the liquor by which his intoxication was produced, the magistrate before whom the trial was had shall commit him to the county jail for contempt of court.

G. P. McLean and A. Brainard, for appellant.

W. Hamersley and F. H. Parker, for appellee.

CARPENTER, J. The complainant was convicted of in toxication, and was required to disclose, under the act of 1889, c. 167, "under oath, when, where, how, and from whom he procured the liquor by which his intoxication was produced." He refused "to make such disclosure." Thereupon the magistrate (the judge of the police court of Hartford) before whom the trial was had proceeded "to commit the accused for contempt of court to the common jail" for 10 days. On a writ of habeas corpus he was brought before a judge of the superior court. The sheriff's return set out the proceedings in the police court, and the mittimus issued thereon. The complainant demurred to the return, because, he says, the statute under which the proceedings were had is obnoxious to constitutional provisions. The judge overruled the demurrer, and the complainant appealed.

Provisions for disclosures by persons found intoxicated or arrested for intoxication first appeared in the statute of 1854, and have since remained there, with some changes from time to time. Until 1889 disclosures were at the option of the prisoner, and could only be made before conviction; and, upon being fairly made, they contemplated the discharge of the intoxicated person. The statute of 1889 made a radical change. It provides for disclosures only after conviction, does not discharge the prisoner, and the disclosure is made compulsory. Whether this act is a substitute for the statute previously existing, or is in addition thereto, is not now a material question.

The first ground of demurrer is that the statute "is a deprivation of the right to a trial by jury, as provided by section 21 of article 1 of the constitution of Connecticut." This objection misconceives the nature and character of the proceeding be fore the police court. The appellant was not then before the court as a defendant in a criminal prosecution. That had been his position; but upon his conviction that was changed, and he became, so far as this case is concerned, merely a witness. He was in no sense on trial,—no one was, —and therefore was not in jeopardy. The proceeding was not judicial, but ministerial. For more than a century and a half we have had upon the statute-book a law authorizing the grand jurors in the several towns to meet and advise and inquire into the offenses that had been committed, with power to summon and examine witnesses, and, if need be, to punish for contempt. Gen. St. §91. This proceeding is but an extension of the same power to other officers for the same general purpose, namely, the protection of society, by preventing crime through the detection...