Ex parte Rosenblatt

• Decision Date: 30 June 1887
• Docket Number: 1,267.
• Citation: 14 P. 298,19 Nev. 439
• Parties: Ex parte ROSENBLATT.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

14 P. 298

19 Nev. 439

Ex parte ROSENBLATT.

No. 1,267.

Supreme Court of Nevada

June 30, 1887

Application for habeas corpus.

R. H Lindsay and S.D. King, for petitioner.

The Attorney General and T. Coffin, for the State.

BELKNAP J.

The petitioner was convicted of a violation of an act of the legislature of the state approved February 23, 1885, entitled "An act providing for the licensing of travelling merchants, and merchants doing business through soliciting agents, commonly known as 'drummers,"' (Gen. St § 1269,) in acting as soliciting agent or drummer without procuring a license therefor. He is held in custody under a commitment issued upon the judgment.

In his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, he alleges that he is a resident of the state of California, and that he was, at the time of his arrest, a traveling merchant soliciting agent, and drummer offering goods, wares, and merchandise for sale in the town of Reno, to be delivered at a future time from the state of California by his principals residents of that state; that, by the act of the legislature before mentioned, it is made a misdemeanor to exercise any such occupation without having first obtained a license therefor; and that, under this law, he was convicted, first, in the court of the justice of the peace, and afterwards, upon appeal, in the district court of Washoe county. Heavers that the enactment of the legislature imposing the license tax is unconstitutional and void, because repugnant to that clause of the constitution of the United States which declares that congress shall have power to regulate commerce among the several states; and prays to be released from his imprisonment.

The supreme court of the United States in a recent case, that of Robbins v. Taxing District Shelby Co., 120 U.S. 489, 7 S.Ct. 592, considered the constitutionality of a statute of the state of Tennessee involving the same question. The Tennessee statute declared that "all drummers, and all persons not having a regular licensed house of business in the taxing district, offering for sale or selling goods, wares, or merchandise therein by sample, shall be required to pay to the county trustee the sum of ten dollars per week, or twenty-five dollars per month, for such privilege, and no license shall be issued for a longer term than three months." Robbins, a citizen of the state of Ohio, employed by citizens of that state having a business house at Cincinnati, was convicted of a violation of the law. On appeal to the supreme court of the state the judgment was affirmed. The case was then...