Ex parte Diggs

• Decision Date: 03 July 1905
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: EX PARTE WILLIAM DIG

38 So. 730

86 Miss. 597

EX PARTE WILLIAM DIG

Supreme Court of Mississippi

July 3, 1905

FROM the chancery court of Tunica county, HON. PERCY BELL Chancellor.

Dig the appellant, applied to the chancellor for a writ of habeas corpus; the writ was, upon a hearing on the merits, denied and the relator remanded to custody, from which judgment he appealed to the supreme court. The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment affirmed.

J. T. Lowe, for appellant.

Our supreme court, in Ex parte William Meyer, 57 Miss. 85, in an opinion delivered by Judge Chalmers, forever set at rest any contention as to what kind of debts come within the class provided in sec. 30 of the state constitution. Mark the language of the court:

"We think the debts which the framers of the constitution had in view were those springing from the contracts of the party, express or implied, or the liabilities which the law imposes upon him for his tortious acts to another, and are wholly disconnected from the penalties incurred by violation of the criminal law."

There has been no contention or dispute at any time that the fifteen dollars for clothing is nos a debt based on an implied contract, nor does the fact that there is a statute such as sec. 22, ch. 76, of the acts of 1894, which provides for imprisonment for debt, alter the situation in any sense.

The court in Ex parte Meyer, supra, held that a party could not be imprisoned in default of paying costs incurred by him in the trial of a criminal prosecution against himself, because same was inhibited by the constitutional provision. See sec. 11 supra. And we contend it would be idle to insist that by a legislative enactment a party could be held and imprisoned in default of paying costs incurred by him, the defendant, in the trial. And much more we contend is the proposition now before the court--to wit, the fifteen dollars for clothing furnished--a debt pure and simple, than any costs incurred by a defendant in the trial of a charge against him.

William Williams, attorney-general, contra.

OPINION

TRULY, J.

Upon an application for habeas corpus, relator was remanded to custody by the chancellor. The agreed statement of facts shows that relator was tried and convicted before a court of competent jurisdiction upon a charge of assault, and was sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail for a term of ninety days, and, in addition thereto, to pay a fine of fifty dollars, and costs of the prosecution, amounting to sixteen dollars and forty cents; that in default thereof relator was committed to jail under a duly issued mittimus, and the mittimus and jail fees amounted to two dollars; that, upon failure to pay fine and costs, relator was delivered to the county convict contractor; that said relator had served his ninety-day term of imprisonment, and had worked out a portion of the said fine and costs, until on the 25th of April there remained of this fine and costs not then worked out forty-two dollars and twenty cents, which the relator on that day paid to, and which was accepted by, the sheriff of the county, and an order issued by him directing the county convict contractor to release the said William Dig. The sheriff paid the said contractor the said sum of forty-two dollars and twenty cents, and handed him the order demanding him to release the relator. At that date the said contractor had already furnished the said convict, since the date of his delivery to him, and while the said convict was in his charge, clothing, shoes, etc., to the amount of fifteen dollars, and, because the said amount of fifteen dollars was not paid by the said relator at the time the said forty-two dollars and twenty cents was paid, the county convict contractor refused and failed to release from his custody and to discharge the said relator, and held the said Dig in his custody as a convict, over his protest and remonstrance. It being also agreed that the said amount so furnished in clothing was reasonable and necessary.

It is contended by the relator that the sum due for the clothing which was furnished by the convict contractor to the convict while in his custody constitutes simply a personal obligation from the one man to the other; that it is but a debt due by Dig personally to Williams, the convict contractor, as an individual. So, being a debt, the detaining of the relator in custody to enforce the payment thereof is, in effect, imprisonment for debt, and therefore in contravention of sec. 30 of our constitution, which provides that "there shall be no imprisonment for debt." To be a debt within the meaning of the constitution, the obligation existing between the parties must be either purely contractual or arise from some legal liability growing out of the debtor's dealings with another. The term "debt," as employed in a constitutional provision prohibiting the imprisonment therefor, does not extend to or embrace any pecuniary obligation imposed by the state as a punishment for crime, whether the money, the payment of which is demanded, be for fines or costs, or even, in certain quasi criminal proceedings, other penalties of a moneyed nature which may be lawfully inflicted by a court. This is the recognized interpretation given to similar provisions not only in this state, but elsewhere. 16 Am. &amp Eng. Ency. Law, 34; Ex parte Meyer, 57 Miss. 85; Ex parte Bridgforth, 77 Miss. 418 (27 So. 622; 78 Am. St. Rep., 532). It is universally recognized that...