In re Kreiner

• Decision Date: 24 April 1909
• Citation: 156 Mich. 296,120 N.W. 785
• Parties: In re KREINER.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

156 Mich. 296

120 N.W. 785

In re KREINER.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

April 24, 1909.

Certiorari to Circuit Court, Wayne County; Joseph W. Donovan, Judge.

Charles H. Kreiner was convicted of selling liquor without payment of tax, and sentenced to imprisonment, and discharged on a writ of habeas corpus, and certiorari is brought to review the issuance of that writ.

Argued before GRANT, C. J., and BLAIR, MONTGOMERY, BROOKE, and OSTRANDER, JJ. B. F. Reed, Pros. Atty., for petitioner.

Geer, Williams & Halpin, for respondent.

MONTGOMERY, J.

The respondent was duly convicted, in the circuit court for the county of Lapeer, of the offense of selling liquor without payment of tax, and sentenced to imprisonment in the Detroit House of Correction for the period of 65 days, and a further period, if his fine and costs were not paid, until the same should be paid, not exceeding six months from and including the date of his sentence. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus, and was discharged by the circuit judge on the ground that there was no authority to imprison for this offense in the Detroit House of Correction, and the decision of the circuit judge is brought here for review on certiorari.

Section 5385 of the Compiled Laws, being section 7 of the act for taxation and regulation of the liquor traffic, provides, in substance, that if any person shall engage in any business requiring the payment of the tax provided by the act, without having paid such tax, or shall in any manner violate any of the provisions of the act, such person shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, if there be any specific penalty provided by the act, shall be punished by fine of not more than $200 and costs of prosecution, ‘or by imprisonment in the county jail not less than ten days nor more than ninety days, or both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.’ And provides further: ‘And in case such fine and costs shall not have been paid at the time such imprisonment expires, the person serving out such sentence shall be further detained in jail until such fine and costs shall have been fully paid: Provided, that in no case shall the whole term of imprisonment exceed six months.’ By section 2163 of the Compiled Laws, being section 9 of the act providing for the Detroit House of Correction, and following upon section 8, which provides for an agreement between the board of supervisors of any county and the city of Detroit for the detention of prisoners at the charge of the county, it is provided: ‘In every county having such agreement with the said city of Detroit, it shall be the duty of every court, police justice, justice of the peace or other magistrate by whom any person, for any crime or misdemeanor not punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, may be sentenced for any term not less than sixty days, to sentence such person to the Detroit House of Correction, there to be received, kept and employed in the manner prescribed by law, and the rules and discipline of the said house of correction.’

It is the general rule that all consistent statutes which can stand together, though enacted at different dates, relating to the same subject, are treated prospectively, and construed together as though they constituted one. ‘Statutes which are not inconsistent with one another, and which relate to the same subject-matter, are in pari materia, and should be construed together; and effect should be given to them all, although they contain no reference to one another, and were passed at different times.’ See 2 Sutherland on Statutory Construction, § 443. See, also, Commonwealth v. Griffin, 105 Mass. 185;State v. Towner, 26 Mont. 339, 67 Pac. 1004. We think these two statutes should be construed as in pari materia. It is to be noted of section 2163 that no attempt is therein made to define...