Hunt v. City of Jacksonville

• Decision Date: 22 December 1894
• Citation: 34 Fla. 504,16 So. 398
• Parties: HUNT v. CITY OF JACKSONVILLE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

16 So. 398

34 Fla. 504

HUNT v. CITY OF JACKSONVILLE.

Florida Supreme Court

December 22, 1894

Meade Hunt was convicted in a prosecution by the city of Jacksonville of assault and battery, and applies for a writ of certiorari. Denied.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

1. Section 3 of the declaration of rights in our constitution providing that 'the right of trial by jury shall be secure to all, and remain inviolate forever,' was never intended to extend the right of jury trial, but merely secures it in the cases in which it was matter of right before the adoption of the constitution. Trials in municipal courts for infractions of municipal ordinances were conducted generally without juries prior to the adoption of our constitution, and therefore do not fall within the constitutional guaranty, and offenders against such ordinances are not entitled to a jury trial in such courts.

2. Municipal governments, when clothed with the requisite legislative authority, may, by ordinance, create an offense as against municipal law, out of the same act that constitutes an offense already against state law; and in such cases the two offenses are distinct and separate, and may be punished by both the municipality and by the state, and the conviction or acquittal by the one will be no bar to prosecution and punishment by the other.

3. The common-law writ of certiorari is never permitted to serve the purpose of a writ of error or appeal with bill of exceptions and the granting of such writ is not a matter of right, but rests in the legal discretion of the court. In order to review and quash the proceedings of an inferior court upon such writ, it must appear that the inferior court has proceeded in the cause without jurisdiction, or its procedure must have been clearly illegal, or unknown to the law, or essentially irregular.

COUNSEL

R. H. Liggett, for plaintiff.

J. M. Barrs, for defendant.

OPINION

TAYLOR J.

The petitioner, Meade Hunt, was tried and convicted in the municipal court of the city of Jacksonville upon a charge of having, on the 31st day of July, 1894, disturbed the public peace of said city by committing an assault and battery upon one Burt G. Dyal, in a place of general resort within the city limits of the city of Jacksonville, in violation of an ordinance of said city in such cases made and provided. A fine was imposed upon him of $500. At the trial before the municipal court he pleaded to the jurisdiction of that court to try him for the offense charged, upon the ground that under the constitution he was entitled to a trial by jury, and that the municipal court could not give him a jury trial. This plea was overruled, and, as before stated, he was tried, against his protest, without a jury, convicted, and sentenced. From this judgment he took writ of error to the circuit court of Duval county. The circuit court rendered judgment affirming the judgment of the municipal court. He now presents his petition to this court, setting up the above facts, and therein prays for a writ of certiorari to the said circuit court for Duval county, commanding it to send to us here a complete transcript of the record of the judgment and proceedings in said cause, and that the said judgment of affirmance may be quashed.

In support of the application for the writ the only contention of the counsel for the petitioner is that under our constitution, that provides (section 3, Declaration of Rights) that 'the right of trial by jury shall be secure to all, and remain inviolate forever,' the municipal court had no jurisdiction to try and punish him for the offense charged, because it could not try by jury, and that the defendant was entitled to a jury trial; that the offense charged, though disguised in the city ordinance as being simply a breach of the peace...