Donnell v. Bd. of Registration of Med.

Decision Date24 February 1930
Citation149 A. 153
PartiesDONNELL v. BOARD OF REGISTRATION OF MEDICINE.
CourtMaine Supreme Court

Petition by Charles K. Donnell for writ of certiorari to review the action of the Board of Registration of Medicine revoking certificate and canceling registration of petitioner. Writ issued.

Argued before PATTANGALL, C. J., and DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, and FARRINUTON, JJ.

Louis J. Brann, Prank T. Powers, and John D. Clifford, all of Lewiston, for petitioner.

Clement F. Robinson, Atty. Gen., and Fred. H. Lancaster, of Lewiston, for the State.

BARNES, J.

In June, 1929, petitioner, a resident of Lewiston, was legally possessed of a certificate of registration as a physician or surgeon.

Unless registered, he could not lawfully practice medicine or surgery within the state.

At the June term of the superior court of Androscoggin county, in 1929, in the case State v. Donnell and Edwards, petitioner was indicted and tried, with another, for manslaughter.

The verdict of the trial jury was "guilty." Motion to the trial judge, after verdict and before sentence, for a new trial, was overruled.

Appeal was entered to our court of last resort, and sentence was pronounced; its execution being suspended pending the appeal.

Thereafterward the Board of Registration of Medicine, after notice and hearing, revoked the certificate and canceled the registration of the petitioner, acting under authorization in section 14, c. 18, of the Revised Statutes, which provides: "Said board, after a conviction before a proper court, for crime in the course of professional business, of any person to whom a certificate has been issued by them, and after hearing, may by vote of two-thirds of the entire board revoke the certificate and cancel the registration of the person to whom the same was issued."

At the September term of the Supreme Judicial Court for Androscoggin County, and before decision on the appeal for a new trial under the indictment for manslaughter, petition for certiorari against the Board of Registration of Medicine was presented, the grounds alleged being that petitioner had not bean "convicted" of the commission of crime.

The case, upon agreed statement of facts, was reserved for the law court, and is the case at bar.

Petitioner contends that return of a verdict of guilty is not the "conviction," which by the statute is a prerequisite to revocation of certificate in a case like this.

Even superficial reading of statutes and opinions of courts interpreting them reveals that, in the language of criminal jurisprudence, here and in Great Britain, the word "conviction" has distinct and different meanings.

As naming the stage of a trial reached when respondent pleads guilty, or by a jury is found guilty, "conviction" is by many courts, and in chapters 136 and 137 of our Revised Statutes, as elsewhere therein, used to express the state of the respondent, before the conclusion of his case. State v. Morrill, 105 Me. 207, 73 A. 1091; State v. Stickney, 108 Me. 136, 79 A. 370.

That conclusion is the judgment of a court having final jurisdiction of the case.

It is the contention of petitioner that, in the statute regulating revocation of a physician's certificate of registration, conviction is the judgment of the court, which is to be reached before execution of sentence, and not the return of the adverse verdict.

With this interpretation of our statute we agree, and decisions of other courts, upon different statutes cannot be greatly helpful in the matter of construction of the Maine statute.

Perhaps the cases involving the removal of public officers, as disqualified for commission of a crime while in office, are most nearly analogous to the case at bar, but they are few in number.

Faunce v. People, 51 Ill. 311, deals with the question of what amounts to a conviction that will preclude the giving of testimony, under a statute declaring that a person convicted of a certain crime shall be rendered incapable of holding office giving testimony, etc. There it is held that a judgment on the verdict is essential to conviction that will disqualify a witness; and it may be inferred that a similar construction would have been given the statute had that part of it been involved which declared the person convicted incapable of holding office.

In Commonwealth v. Lockwood, 109 Mass. 323, 12 Am. Rep. 699, which required the interpretation of the word "conviction" in a constitutional provision relating to the pardoning power, the court say, in what in that case was but dictum: "The ordinary legal meaning of 'conviction,' when used to designate a particular stage of a criminal prosecution triable by a jury, is the confession of the accused in open court, or the verdict returned against him by the jury, which ascertains and publishes the fact of his guilt; while 'judgment' or 'sentence' is the appropriate word to denote the action of the court before which the trial is had, declaring the consequences to the convict of the fact thus ascertained." This, then, is the usual and altogether the most common meaning of the word "conviction." Munkley v. Hoyt et al., 179 Mass. 108, 60 N. E. 413, 414.

In a case where it was held that a verdict of guilty, upon which no judgment had been entered, was not within the provision of a statute excluding from the elective franchise persons convicted of felony, the court say, referring to the Lockwood Case (Massachusetts): "Here we have a judicial intimation of much weight to the effect that a constitutional disqualification dependent upon an officer having been convicted of bribery or corruption in procuring his office contemplates 'the judgment of the court upon the verdict or confession of guilt'" People v. Fabian, 102 N. Y. 443, 85 N. E. 672, 675, 18 L. R. A. (N. S.) 684, 127 Am. St. Rep. 917, 15 Ann. Cas. 100.

In ruling on what constitutes conviction of crime as affecting the credibility of a witness, the court held, in Commonwealth v. Gorham, 99 Mass. 420, that "conviction" implied a judgment of the court. In that case the court say: "The term 'conviction' is used in at least two different senses in our statutes. In...

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15 cases
  • State ex rel. Olson v. Langer, 6288.
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of North Dakota
    • September 28, 1934
    ......St. Rep. 917, 15 Ann. Cas. 100;State v. Houston, 103 N. C. 383, 9 S. E. 699;Donnell v. Board of Registration of Medicine, 128 Me. 523, 149 A. 153, are not in point, because in all of ......
  • State, Relation of Olson v. Langer
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of North Dakota
    • September 19, 1934
    ......St. Rep. 917, 15 Ann. Cas. 100;. State v. Houston, 103 N.C. 383, 9 S.E. 699;. Donnell v. Medicine Bd. of Registration, 128 Me. 523, 149 A. 153; are not in point, because in all of ......
  • State v. Heald
    • United States
    • Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)
    • January 3, 1978
    ...of the particular statute in which they are used. State v. DeBery, 150 Me. 28, 30, 103 A.2d 523 (1954); Donnell v. Board of Registration, 128 Me. 523, 524-525, 149 A. 153 (1930). In its common and popular sense, the term "convicted" signifies the finding of the jury that the defendant is gu......
  • Hughes v. State Board of Health
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of Missouri
    • February 26, 1942
    ...... Harrison, 159 P. 769, 92 Wash. 577; White v. Andrew, 197 P. 564, 70 Colo. 50; Donnell v. Board of. Registration of Medicine, 149 A. 153, 128 Me. 523; Sec. 8, Art. 5, Mo. Constitution; ......
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