Douglass v. Barber
| Decision Date | 24 January 1894 |
| Citation | 28 A. 805,18 R.I. 459 |
| Parties | DOUGLASS v. BARBER. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Exceptions from district court, Providence county.
Action by Josephine E. Douglass against George P. Barber to recover damages for an illegal arrest There was a verdict for defendant, and plaintiff excepts. Exceptions overruled.
Albert B. Crafts, for plaintiff.
Dexter B. Potter, for defendant.
This is an action of trespass for an alleged illegal arrest which the defendant justifies in a special plea setting forth that the plaintiff, at the time of the supposed trespass, had entered a schoolhouse in the town of Exeter, locked the door from the inside, and was detaining possession of said schoolhouse, thereby preventing the teacher and scholars of said school from entering therein; and the defendant being an officer of the law, to wit, a constable, thereupon arrested the plaintiff, and took her before the justice of the district court where a warrant was issued, upon which she was arraigned and committed. The case is before us on exceptions to the refusal of the Judge to charge the jury an requested at the trial.
The first request was to charge the jury that if the plaintiff took possession of the schoolhouse, and was ejected before the school was called to order, and before school time, she was not guilty of a misdemeanor. The third request may also be considered with the first. It was this: "if the complainant took peaceable possession of the schoolhouse, and locked the doors, so as to keep the teacher and scholars out, and stayed inside, making no threats and using no violence to retain possession, then the defendant had no right to arrest her and carry her to Wickford, but did have a right to remove her from the schoolhouse properly, and that only." Pub. St. R. I. c. 241, § 7, provides a punishment, by fine or imprisonment, for persons who willfully interrupt or disturb any public or private school.1 Prom the nature of the offense, which violates public order, and interferes with public and personal rights, as well as the specification of the offense in the statutes under the head of "Offences against the Public Peace and Property," it is clear that the interruption or disturbance of a public school is a breach of the public peace, for which an offender may be arrested by an officer without a warrant, when the act is done in his view. 1 Bish. Cr. Proc. §§ 169-183, and notes; 1 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 734, and notes; 1 Burn, J. P. tit. "Arrest;" Com. v. Tobin, 108 Mass. 426. The requests to charge are based upon the claim that the acts of the plaintiff, in this case, amounted only to a trespass, or forcible entry and detainer. But we think that they were more, and that they amounted to a violation of the statute. To interrupt and disturb a school necessarily includes, not only acts which disturb the school while in session, but also those which prevent the school from assembling. A school is as much interrupted or disturbed by preventing the assembly as by breaking it up after it is assembled. The statute is aimed at the protection and peaceable conduct of schools. The fact of calling to order, therefore, is without significance. It would be a very narrow construction of the statute, which could neither be justified by its purpose nor language, to say that a disorderly act after a school had been called to order would be an interruption or disturbance of the school, and an offense, but one which prevented both the holding and calling to order of the school would not be an interruption or disturbance, and so no offense at all. Accordingly, we find that similar statutes relating to religious meetings have been held to extend protection "to the assemblage when it is in the act of gathering together at the place appointed for worship, while the exercises are in progress, and until there is a dispersion of the persons who have come together, and they cease to be an assemblage...
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Keefe v. Hart
...statement of the facts. He is not responsible for the action of the magistrate. Hobbs v. Hill, 157 Mass. 556, 32 N.E. 862; Douglass v. Barber, 18 R.I. 459, 28 A. 805. defendants had no right to detain the plaintiff to enable them to make a further investigation of the charge against him. It......
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Clark v. Tilton
...125 Mass. 198; Caffrey v. Drugan, 144 Mass. 294, 296, 11 N. E. 96; Joyce v. Parkhurst, 150 Mass. 243, 246, 22 N. E. 899; Douglas v. Barber, 18 R. I. 459, 28 Atl. 805; Mulberry v. Fuellhart, 203 Pa. 573, 53 Atl. 504; Twilley v. Perkins, 77 252, 26 Atl. 236, 19 L. R. A. 632, 39 Am. St. Rep. 4......
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Kominsky v. Durand, 8199.
...the law requires an officer who makes an arrest without a warrant, to make a complaint for the offense * * *." Douglass v. Barber, 18 R.I. 459, 462, 28 A. 805, 806. But the court also pointed out therein that the failure of the officer in that case to procure from the magistrate a complaint......