Ex Parte Loving
Decision Date | 09 December 1903 |
Parties | Ex parte LOVING. |
Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
In Banc. Petition by James Loving for writ of habeas corpus against John P. Gilday, sheriff of Jackson county. Petitioner remanded to the custody of the sheriff.
Frank Gordon and John A. Sea, for petitioner. Seddon & Blair, J. Henry Altschu, Roland Hughes, Gardiner Lathrop, Jas. P. Gilmore, J. V. C. Karnes, and Alfred Gregory, for respondent.
The facts in the case at bar are practically admitted. The defendant, James Loving, was arrested and charged with petit larceny, committed in Jackson county. The petitioner is a boy eight years of age, and brought before the juvenile court of Jackson county. The case was heard by the judge of the juvenile court, and, having heard the facts, he found the defendant guilty, and thereupon the following judgment was made and entered of record in the records of said county: A writ of habeas corpus was sued out by the mother of the petitioner, and against the sheriff, who had the custody of James Loving, made returnable to this court. The legal service of the writ was waived, as was also the production of the body of the person, who, it was charged, was illegally restrained of his liberty. To this writ, in proper form, the sheriff filed his return, which is partly as follows: Accompanying this return is a copy of the entire proceeding, including the judgment and commitment. To this return there is a demurrer filed, which is as follows: This statement indicates clearly the controverted questions, and it is unnecessary to say more.
This proceeding presents but one question for our consideration. That is the validity of the act of March 23, 1903, commonly known as the "Juvenile Court Act." We have examined with a marked degree of care, and read with deep interest, all of the provisions of the act of the Legislature involved in this controversy. We confess, at the outset, that the wise and beneficent purposes sought to be accomplished by this act — the prevention of crime, and the upbuilding of a good and useful citizenship — tends, at least, to the creation of a desire to uphold it. However, in the determination of so grave and important a question as the one with which we are confronted, inclinations and desires should not be consulted; and, in approaching the consideration of the questions presented, we hope to do so with that high conception of duty so appropriately expressed by Chief Justice Ryan in the Wisconsin Industrial School Case, 40 Wis. 333, 22 Am. Rep. 702: "Notwithstanding this prepossession in favor of the statute before us, it is our duty to test all its provisions involved in this case by the letter and spirit of the Constitution, and to hold the restraints and principles of that instrument sacred, as against any provision of any act of the Legislature, however humane or benevolent." It must be conceded that this act reaches out into a new field of legislation, and, in a sense, may be said to be a new departure from the ordinary paths, in the exercise of the functions of that, the co-ordinate branch of the state government; but, in the language of what has been appropriately said elsewhere, "we live in a time of inquiry and innovation, when many things having the sanction of time are questioned, and many novelties jarring with long-accepted theories are proposed." This act is assailed on the ground that it is offensive to, and in violation of, the organic law — the Constitution of this state. In the solution of the proposition before us, we must keep in view that familiar principle that, if there is a reasonable doubt existing as to the constitutionality of the act, such doubt must be resolved in favor of its validity. This principle is so well recognized that the mere statement of it is sufficient. In State ex rel. v. Aloe, 152 Mo. 477, 54 S. W. 496, it was very clearly and tersely stated: To the same effect is State ex rel. v. Pike County, 144 Mo. 277, 45 S. W. 1098, where it is said: ...
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State v. Parker Distilling Co.
... ... v. Aloe, 152 Mo., loc cit. 477, 54 S. W. 494, 47 L. R. A. 393; State ex parte Loving, 178 Mo., loc. cit. 203, 77 S. W. 508; State v. Cantwell, 179 Mo., loc. cit. 261, 78 S. W. 569; State ex ... 139 S.W. 458 ... rel. v. Pike ... ...
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