Borino v. Gen. Registrars of Voters of City And Town of Bridgeport

• Citation: 86 A. 597,86 Conn. 622
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Decision Date: 17 April 1913
• Parties: BORINO v. GENERAL REGISTRARS OF VOTERS OF CITY AND TOWN OF BRIDGEPORT.

86 A. 597

86 Conn. 622

BORINO

v. GENERAL REGISTRARS OF VOTERS OF CITY AND TOWN OF BRIDGEPORT.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 17, 1913.

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Marcus H. Holcomb, Judge.

Application by Ralph T. Borino for a writ of mandamus against the General Registrars of Voters of the City and Town of Bridgeport to compel the registration of relator as a voter. From a judgment sustaining the motion to quash and dismissing the writ, relator appeals. Affirmed.

John P. Gray, of Bridgeport, for appellant.

John S. Pullman, of Bridgeport, for appellees.

RORABACK, J. The application alleges that the relator, in 1905, was a resident and elector of the city of Bridgeport. In October of that year he was informed against by the prosecuting attorney of the city court of Bridgeport for obtaining money under false pretenses. Upon this information he was convicted in the city court of Bridgeport, and on appeal to the criminal court of common pleas for Fairfield county he pleaded guilty to the offense charged against him in the information.

Upon his plea of guilty the court sentenced him to pay a fine of $30, which he paid. Thereafter the clerk of the superior court for Fairfield county, pursuant to his statutory duties, notified the selectmen of the town of Bridgeport that the relator had been convicted of a crime, which conviction worked a forfeiture of his civil rights. Thereupon the general registrars of voters of Bridgeport struck the name of the relator from the list of voters of Bridgeport, and have since refused, and still refuse, to reinstate the relator's name on the list. The relator thereby was deprived, and still is deprived, of his privileges an an elector, and he brings the present writ of mandamus to require of the respondents a reinstatement of his name on the list of voters. The respondents demurred to the writ and moved to quash the same, because: "From the allegations set forth in the writ it appears that the relator was legally convicted of the crime of obtaining money under false pretenses, for which crime section 1415 of the General Statutes of 1902 provides the infliction of the infamous punishment of three years' imprisonment, which imprisonment must by law be in the state's prison, and is an infamous punishment within the scope of section 3 of article 6 of the Constitution of the state of Connecticut, relating to the privileges of an elector being forfeited by conviction of an offense for which such an infamous punishment is inflicted." The court sustained the demurrer and, upon the relator's refusing to plead over, granted the motion to quash.

The question presented is whether a person convicted of obtaining money under false pretenses and sentenced to pay a fine of $30 and costs forfeits his rights as an elector. A determination of the relator's rights involves the construction of the Constitution and statute laws of Connecticut.

Article 6, § 3, of the Constitution of this state, provides that "the privileges of an elector shall be forfeited by a conviction of bribery, forgery, perjury, dueling, fraudulent bankruptcy, theft, or other offense for which an infamous punishment is inflicted."

The information to which the relator pleaded guilty was based upon section 1415 of the General Statutes, which reads as follows: "Every person who shall, by any false token, pretense, or device, obtain from another any valuable thing, or any leasehold interest, or the performance of any valuable service, with intent to defraud him or any other person; or who shall obtain from another person any valuable thing, or the performance of any valuable service, by means of delivering a check, order, or draft on a third party, purporting to. be an order for the payment of money, when such person knows that the maker is not entitled to draw on the drawee for the sum specified, shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

The relator contends that the phrase "is inflicted" in section 3 refers to the sentence pronounced by the court upon the particular offender, and not to the penalty attached to the offense by the Legislature, so that disfranchisement follows conviction in the enumerated cases only when the punishment actually meted out by the court is infamous in its character.

If the words have a doubtful meaning, or are susceptible of two meanings, they should receive that which will effectuate the intent of the framers of the Constitution and the general intent of the instrument. People v. Fancher, 50 N. T. 288.

"Where its terms are plain, clear, and determinate, they require no interpretation, and it should therefore be admitted, if at all, with great caution, and only from necessity, either to escape some absurd consequence, or to guard against some fatal evil. * * * Contemporary construction is properly resorted to, to illustrate and confirm the text, to explain a doubtful phrase, to expound an obscure clause. It can never abrogate the text; it can never down its true limitations; it can never enlarge its natural boundaries." 1 Story, Const.,§§ 405, 407; State ex rel. v. Wrightson, 56 N. J. Law, 126, 28 Atl. 56, 22 L. R. A. 558.

"In construing any act of legislation, whether a statute enacted by the Legislature or a Constitution established by the people as the supreme law of the land, regard is to be had, not only to all parts of the act itself, and of any former act of the same lawmaking power, but also to the condition and to the history of the law as previously existing, and in the light of which the new act must be read and interpreted." United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 18 Sup. Ct. 456, 42 L. Ed. 892.

The laws of this state, relating to crimes before and at the time when our Constitution was framed and adopted, may be properly referred to if they will throw any light upon the subject-matter of this inquiry. The Constitution of Connecticut was framed and adopted in 1818. At this time the compilation of the General Statutes of 1808 was in force. The punishment for bribery under General Statutes of 1808, tit. 1)5, c. 1, §§ 12 and 13, pp. 246, 247, was a fine of $7, or $17, as the case may be. The crime of perjury (General Statutes 1808, p. 548) was punishable by a fine of $67 and imprisonment for six months.

It is apparent that the framers of section 3 had in mind the statutory provisions in force relating to crimes and punishments. Several offenses were specifically enumerated which worked a forfeiture of the privileges of an elector irrespective of the penalty inflicted. If the sentence of the court were merely a fine, the conviction nevertheless operated as a forfeiture. Apparently section 3 was framed for a single purpose. This purpose was to give the Legislature constitutional sanction for passing laws excluding those from the privileges of an elector who might thereafter be convicted, not only of any of the six offenses specifically enumerated, but of any other offense for which an infamous punishment is inflicted by the lawmaking power.

This section of the Constitution was amended in 1875. It is of some importance to note that this amendment is in the following language: "The General Assembly shall have power, by a vote of two-thirds of the members of both branches, to restore the privileges of an elector to those who may have forfeited the same by a conviction of crime."

Upon an examination of the Constitution nnd decisions of the different states in this country, we find no recognition of the principle contended for by the relator in the present case.

The true test universally applied in such cases is whether the crime is one for which the statute authorizes the court to award an infamous punishment, and not whether the punishment ultimately awarded is an infamous one. If the accused is in danger of...