Flannagan v. Jepson, No. 30853.

• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa
• Writing for the Court: WEAVER
• Citation: 177 Iowa 393,158 N.W. 641
• Parties: FLANNAGAN v. JEPSON, JUDGE, ET AL.
• Decision Date: 07 July 1916
• Docket Number: No. 30853.

177 Iowa 393
158 N.W. 641

FLANNAGAN
v.
JEPSON, JUDGE, ET AL.

No. 30853.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

July 7, 1916.

Appeal from District Court, Woodbury County; George Jepson, Judge.

Original proceeding in certiorari to test the validity of the judgment of the district court in committing the plaintiff therein to the penitentiary for one year at hard labor upon proof of the second violation of the decree, heretofore rendered, enjoining plaintiff from maintaining liquor nuisance. Annulled.

Preston, J., dissenting.

[158 N.W. 641]

Geo. G. Yeaman and Oliver, Harding & Oliver, all of Sioux City, for plaintiff.

John F. Joseph, of Sioux City, for defendants.

WEAVER, J.

A decree was entered in November, 1911, enjoining the plaintiff herein from maintaining a liquor nuisance. In December, 1914, an information was filed accusing him of violating the terms of said decree, and, after hearing, he was found guilty and punished for contempt. Thereafter, in October, 1915, a second information accusing him of violating the said decree was filed, and a trial had and the defendant found guilty. The judgment previously referred to was introduced in evidence and the defendant sentenced

[158 N.W. 642]

to serve a period of one year in the penitentiary at Ft. Madison at hard labor. This sentence was in pursuance of section 2461m of the Supplemental Supplement to the Code (1915), which provides that a person, who, after one conviction upon a criminal charge for violation of the liquor law, shall be again indicted, tried, and convicted for subsequent offense against the same statute, shall be classed as a persistent violator and be imprisoned in the state penitentiary or reformatory for not more than one year, and section 2407 thereof which provides that a person who has been once found guilty of contempt for violating a liquor injunction shall, for each subsequent violation, be punished by a fine of not less than $500 or more than $1,000, or by imprisonment in the state penitentiary or state reformatory at hard labor for not more than one year. In other words, when these enactments are read in the light of the repeated holdings of this court that contempt is not a crime, and that punishment imposed and suffered for contempt in no manner relieves a party from his liability to prosecution and punishment under an indictment for the same act, it follows that this defendant, having once been convicted and once enjoined, may, upon a second conviction, be committed to the penitentiary at hard labor for one year, and, having served his time, may emerge from prison to be met at the door by the sheriff armed with a writ for his arrest for contempt, and, upon order of the court without trial by jury, be condemned to return to the penitentiary for another full year at hard labor.

The objections raised by the petitioner direct our attention to the following provisions of the Constitution of Iowa:

Article 1, § 10: In all criminal prosecutions, and in cases involving the life or liberty of an individual, the accused shall have a right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury.

Article 1, § 23: There shall be no slavery in this state; nor shall there be involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime.

The petitioner also invokes the protection of the provision found in both the Constitution of the state and the Constitution of the United States providing that excessive fines shall not be imposed, and cruel and inhuman punishments shall not be inflicted. Const. Iowa, art. 1, § 17; Const. U. S. Amend. 8; also of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Defendant contends that the right to invoke the protection of the provision of the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting involuntary servitude except for crimes of which the person had been duly convicted, and the similar provision of our state Constitution, has been decided by us adversely to the petitioner's claims, but this is clearly beside the mark, as will be seen by reference to Martin v. Blattner, 68 Iowa, 286, 25 N. W. 131, 27 N. W. 244. The question here raised was neither considered nor decided in that case. The defendant, Blattner, had been enjoined and appealed from the decree rendered against him. Among other defenses argued by him was that the statute providing for an injunction was void because it provided a penalty of jail imprisonment, and was therefore in conflict with the constitutional prohibition of involuntary servitude. In overruling the point, the court well said, “It is impossible to discover reasons for holding that an imprisonment for a contempt is [involuntary] servitude.” No such claim is made in the instant case. It is not here argued that mere imprisonment for contempt constitutes “involuntary servitude.” The objection is directed against the judgment by which the contemnor has been adjudged to imprisonment in the penitentiary at hard labor.

[1] Imprisonment is not servitude. Labor enforced as a punishment is “involuntary servitude.” If not, what is the involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime which the Constitution excepts from its otherwise sweeping prohibition? The very language of the Constitution, which prohibits involuntary servitude and then excepts therefrom involuntary servitude imposed as a punishment for crime, demonstrates that, in the minds of the framers of that instrument, enforced labor as punishment for crime is such servitude, and...