Brown v. State
| Decision Date | 26 January 1909 |
| Citation | 119 N.W. 338,137 Wis. 543 |
| Parties | BROWN v. STATE. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Municipal Court of Milwaukee; A. C. Brazee, Judge.
Horace Manchester Brown was convicted of an offense, and brings error. Reversed, and cause remanded, with directions to dismiss the complaint.
Plaintiff in error was informed against for that, being a physician, and having attended upon the birth of a certain child on or about November 10, 1907, he, first, willfully and unlawfully failed, neglected, and refused to register his name, address, and occupation with the local registrar of vital statistics for the district of Milwaukee, where he lived; and, secondly, that on the 5th day of December he did willfully and unlawfully fail, refuse, and neglect to file a certificate of the birth of said child, properly and completely filled out, giving all of the facts required by law, with the local registrar of vital statistics of the district of Milwaukee, and still does willfully and unlawfully fail, neglect, and refuse to file said certificate. The case was finally tried before the municipal court of the city of Milwaukee, without a jury, whereupon said court, without filing formal findings, did adjudge the defendant guilty as charged in the complaint, and sentenced him to a fine of $20, with imprisonment in case of nonpayment, to review which judgment the accused sued out writ of error.Frank M. Hoyt, for plaintiff in error.
F. L. Gilbert, Atty. Gen., and F. T. Tucker, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
DODGE, J. (after stating the facts as above).
This prosecution is under chapter 469, p. 258, Laws 1907, which went into effect October 1st of that year. Prior thereto the notification of births had been required to be made to municipal officers, in Milwaukee to the commissioner of health. The effect of the statute of 1907, now designated as section 1022, subds. 1 to 59, inclusive, was to create a state bureau of vital statistics (subdivision 1), to create the offices of state registrar (subdivision 2), and local registrars in each municipal subdivision of the state (subdivision 6). It imposed on the State Board of Health and the State Registrar authority to make and promulgate rules and regulations (subdivisions 2 and 8). It required the State Registrar to prepare blanks for the necessary certificates of births and deaths, and to supply them to the local registrars (subdivision 7). It required the local registrar to supply blank forms of certificates to such persons as require them (subdivision 20). It required each physician, on or before the 1st day of October, 1907, to register his name, address, and occupation with the local registrar of the district in which he resides (subdivision 19). It required that the physician or midwife in attendance upon any birth should file a certificate of birth properly and completely filled out, giving all the particulars required by this act, with the local registrar of the district in which the birth occurred, within five days after the date of birth (subdivision 28). It prohibited the use of any blanks other than those supplied by the state registrar, (subdivision 8); and it amended section 4608h, St. 1898, to provide: “Any person who shall wilfully violate any of the subdivisions of sections 1022-1 to 1022-59, inclusive, or who shall neglect or refuse to perform any duty or do any act imposed upon him or required by said sections, or who shall neglect or refuse to make any certificate required by said sections to be made, or falsely make any such certificate, or knowingly make any false statement in such certificate, or who shall alter any certificate or report provided for or required by said sections, shall be punished” by fine or imprisonment. (Laws 1907, p. 654, c. 469); and by its final section provided: (5) “This act shall take effect and be in force from and after October 1, 1907.”
The facts, which are not in dispute, are that the defendant is a physician, in active practice in the city of Milwaukee since 1879; that his name, age, and profession have for many years been registered in the office of the city health officer, who, by the act of 1907 (subdivision 6) is made local registrar; that he had no actual knowledge of the passage of the new law; that he attended the birth of the child in question on or about the 10th day of November, 1907; that at that time he was equipped with blanks for certifying births which had been sent him by said city health officer; that the father of the child was absent from town for some days, and that immediately upon his return defendant obtained from him the information necessary to fill such blanks as he had; and that, some time prior to December 5, 1907--when is not proved--he forwarded the same to the health commissioner, who was also the local registrar, in supposed compliance with the law. The certificate was returned to him, calling his attention to the fact that the same did not comply with the new law, and also calling his attention to that section of the law which required every physician on or before October 1, 1907, to register name, address, and occupation with the local registrar. The defendant returned the certificate, and wrote that he had been registered in the office of his correspondent since 1879, also stating that he had none of the so-called “new blanks,” and that he made application for some of them. This was again returned by the local registrar, but no blanks were supplied, and a few days after this prosecution was commenced upon his instigation, apparently without report to, or authority from, the State Registrar, as seems to be at least suggested by section 1022, subd. 9. A book from the city health office was produced, labeled “Physicians' Register,” and containing name, address, and occupation of defendant.
...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Pulp Wood Co. v. Green Bay Paper & Fiber Co.
...no ordinary person can fail to understand his duty and the departure therefrom which the law attempts to make criminal.” Brown v. State, 137 Wis. 543, 119 N. W. 338. It is substantially ruled in some of the federal courts that, in close and doubtful cases arising under the Anti-Trust law an......
-
State v. A. H. Read Co.
... ... S. 206 F ... 374, 46 L. R. A. (NS) 1139; (8th Cir.); People vs ... Salomon, 212 N.Y. 446, 106 N.E. 111; People vs ... Co., 144 N.Y.S. 707; the statute must so clearly define ... acts on which the penalty is denounced, that no ordinary ... person can fail to understand his duty; Brown vs ... State, 137 Wis. 343, 119 N.W. 338; without a definition ... there can be no offense; Hackney vs. State, 8 Ind ... 494; Czarra vs. Board, 25 App. D. C. 443; the City ... of Cheyenne is a body corporate 1623 C. S. but not subject to ... imprisonment, as is also each county and ... ...
-
People v. Maki
...from the words used in the statute, whether the act charged in the indictment comes within the prohibition of the law.’ In Brown v. State, 137 Wis. 543, 119 N. W. 338, it is said: ‘It is a most fundamental canon of criminal legislation that a law which takes away a man's property or liberty......
-
People v. McMurchy
...a device must be tangible, etc. This decision cannot in the remotest degree be related to the question of negligence. In Brown v. State, 137 Wis. 543, 119 N. W. 338, the respondent was accused of failing to observe the state law in regard to registration, but the law, as the court held, was......