Bd. of Sup'rs of Cayuga Cnty. v. State

• Decision Date: 08 June 1897
• Parties: BOARD OF SUP'RS OF CAYUGA COUNTY v. STATE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

153 N.Y. 279

47 N.E. 288

BOARD OF SUP'RS OF CAYUGA COUNTY

v.STATE.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 8, 1897.

Appeal from board of claims.

This is an appeal taken in behalf of the since the claim was not a private, but a public, made on the 21st day of December, 1887 against the state, in favor of the county of Cayuga. Award affirmed.

The material facts are as follows: In the years 1873 to 1887, inclusive, several convicts in the state prison at Auburn were indicted and tried in the county of Cayuga for crimes committed in the prison. In three of the cases the indictments were for murder in the first degree. In two of them the defendants were convicted of the crime charged, and, after appeals had been taken and the convictions affirmed, were executed. In the other case the conviction was for murder in the second degree, and the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for life. The indictments in the other cases were for assault with a deadly weapon or with intent to kill, and upon trial the defendants were convicted. In the prosecution of the various indictments, large expenses were incurred and paid by the county of Cayuga. In the supply bill of 1876 (chapter 193) the legislature appropriated ‘the sum of five thousand dollars or so much thereof as may be necessary’ to reimburse the county for the expenses incurred and paid by the county in 1873, 1874, and 1875 for the trial of certain convicts named in the act, for crimes committed during their imprisonment. It was provided in the act that payment thereunder should be made by the state treasurer on the warrant of the comptroller, but that ‘no warrant shall be issued except in case of salaries, until the amounts claimed shall have been audited and allowed by the comptroller, who is hereby authorized to determine the same.’ The county applied to the comptroller for reimbursement under this act, but he practically ignored the claim, construing the word ‘trial’ in the act to mean ‘trial fee,’ and allowed $20 only in each case and disallowing expenses. The county refused to accept the sum offered, which was less than $200. The supply bill of 1877 contained a similar provision, except that it appropriated a larger amount, but the item was vetoed by the governor. The supply bills of the years 1878, 1880, and 1882 also contained appropriations for the reimbursement of the county for expenses paid up to the time the several appropriations were made; but these items were also vetoed by the governor, as was also a bill passed in 1882, to refer the claim to the board of audit. A similar bill passed in 1883 failed to become a law by the nonaction of the governor. In 1885 the legislature passed the act (chapter 428 of the Laws of that year) upon which the present controversy arises. It is entitled ‘An act to authorize and empower the state board of claims to hear, audit and determine the claims of Cayuga and Chemung counties for moneys expended in the trials of convicts for crimes committed during their imprisonment in Auburn State Prison and in the state reformatory at Elmira, and to make awards therefor.’ The act contains but a single section, and, so far as here material, is as follows: ‘Cayuga county is hereby authorized to present a claim to the state board of claims for moneys expended by said county in the criminal prosecutions and convictions of Michael Donohue, John Coughlin, Patrick Eagan, Thomas C. Hardy, Patrick Clifford, Edwin Thomas, Harvey Thorpe, and William Barr, and each of them, for crimes committed by them while confined in the state prison at Auburn. And the said board of claims is hereby authorized and required to hear and adjust each of said claims, including the expenses of executing said convictions, and award the amounts thereof, or such sums as said board shall consider equitable and just.’ The county filed its claim before the board of claims for the sum of $10,476.18, under this statute. It was brought to a hearing upon proper notice to the attorney general, and, after evidence taken, the board awarded the claimant the sum of $8,383.24. The board rejected an item of $2,090.64, paid by the county for a military guard to protect the jail during the incarceration therein of one Thomas, one of the convicts in the state prison, who was tried and convicted of murder. The case comes before us on an appeal taken by the state from the award of the board of claims. The state rests its appeal upon the sole ground that the act of 1885 is in contravention of certain provisions of the state constitution, which are referred to in the opinion.

G. D. B. Hasbrouck, for the State.

John D. Teller, for respondent.

ANDREWS, C. J. (after stating the facts).

By the law of England and of the American states, indictable offenses are to be tried, subject to certain exceptions, within the county in which they were committed. In this state, from an early period, the state has assumed the expense of maintaining the judiciary of the state other than judges of local courts; but the expense incurred in the arrest, indictment, and prosecution of offenders other than the expense of maintaining the judges has been imposed by statute upon the several counties where the proceedings were had, and made a county charge. 1 Rev. Laws, p. 499, § 17; 1 Rev. St. p. 385, § 3. An exception to this general policy was created by chapter 389 of the Laws of 1882. By that statute the state assumed to pay the expenses of the public prosecution and trial of convicts in the state prisons and in the state reformatory at Elmira for offenses committed by them during their imprisonment, and, in cases of convictions for murder in the first degree, the expense of executing the sentence and judgment. The statute was prospective only, and afforded no remedy for the reimbursement to counties of expenses previously incurred and paid under the antecedent law, in the prosecution and trial of persons for crimes committed during their incarceration in the penal institutions mentioned in the act. The reasons which influenced the legislature in enacting the statute of 1882, shifting the burden of enforcing the criminal law in the cases mentioned from the several counties, and placing it upon the state at large, are obvious. The state prisons are state institutions established for public and general purposes, in the maintenance of which the whole state is interested. Persons convicted of a state prison offense are committed to these institutions wherever, within the state, the conviction may have been had. The government and discipline of the state prisons are vested in the wardens and other state officers. The convicts are under their exclusive control. The county in which a state prison may be located has no voice in its management, and it can exercise no police or other supervision over its inmates. The convicts include men of desperate character, and crimes of violence committed by prisoners are frequent. The legislature may well have considered that, under these circumstances, it was just that the burden of the expense of administering the criminal law in those cases should not be borne exclusively by the locality, but should be made a charge upon the state at large. There can be no doubt that the act of [153 N.Y. 286]1882 was a legitimate exercise of legislative power. It rests upon the power of taxation, the most essential attribute of sovereignty, necessary to the very existence of a state, and which has been vested by the people in the legislature, subject only to such restrictions and limitations as may be found in the state or federal constitution. It includes the power to apportion the public burdens in such manner as may seem best to the legislature, and, while the power of taxation is to be exercised for public purposes, its scope is not to be narrowed by refinement, but it exists in unconfined vigor, except where, by express language or necessary implication, its exercise is restricted by the organic law. Speaking of the power of the legislature, Denio, J., in Town of Guilford v. Supervisors of Chenango Co., 13 N. Y. 143, says: ‘Independently of express constitutional restrictions, it can make appropriations of money whenever the public well-being requires or will be promoted by it; and it is to judge of what is for the public good. It can, moreover, under the power to levy taxes, apportion the public burthens among all the taxpaying citizens of the state, or among those of a particular section or political division.’ This language is very broad, and, if it goes to the extent of affirming an irreviewable discretion in the legislature in every case to determine when taxation pertains to the public good, may possibly admit of qualification, but, as exhibiting the general scope of the taxing power, is forcible and true. What the legislature did by the act of 1882 it might have done at the time the state prisons were established, and from the first have made the expenses of the trial of convicts for crimes committed during their imprisonment a state, instead of a county, charge. The same reasons for this departure from the general policy existed then as in 1882, and, if such an enactment had then been made, the present question would never have arisen. The expenses which, under the act of 1885, were to be reimbursed to the county of Cayuga, would never have been charged to or collected from the county, except as included in its proportionate part of the general tax levy of the state. The act (chapter 428 of the Laws of 1885) under which the award was made by the board of claims, from which this appeal is taken, was passed after many prior unsuccessful applications to the legislature by the county of Cayuga to obtain reimbursement for expenses incurred by the county in the trial of convicts in the state prison at Auburn, for crimes committed therein in 1873, and following years, and prior to the statute of 1882. By the statute of 1885, the legislature recognized the justice of the...