Jannin v. State

• Decision Date: 21 June 1899
• Citation: 51 S.W. 1126
• Parties: JANNIN v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 1126

51 S.W. 1126

JANNIN v. STATE.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

June 21, 1899.

Appeal from district court, Bexar county; T. F. Shields, Special Judge.

C. C. Jannin was convicted of an offense, and he appeals. Reversed.

R. L. Summerlin and Ed. Haltom, for appellant. Upson, Bergstrom & Newton, W. W. Walling, and Mann Trice, for the State.

HENDERSON, J.

Appellant was convicted of selling a railroad ticket, not being the agent of any railroad company, and authorized thereto, under the act of the 23d legislature (Laws 1893, p. 97), and his punishment assessed at a fine of five dollars, and he appeals.

The indictment sets out by exhibit the ticket alleged to have been sold, which is as follows: "Issued by Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Ry. Co. Excursion Ticket. 5/4. Good for one first-class passage San Antonio to Houston (Depot). This ticket is not good for stop-over privilege, and will not be honored for any part of the trip after midnight of May 7th, 1894. Notice. It is a penal offense for the purchaser or holder of this ticket to sell, barter, or transfer the same for a consideration, and this ticket, or any unused part thereof, is redeemable by the company at any ticket office of the company when presented for redemption within ten days after the right to use the same has expired by limitation of time, as stipulated herein. L. J. Parks, Asst. G. P. & T. A. One-way rate, $6.30; round-trip rate, $____. Form S. B." It is alleged substantially that appellant, without lawful authority, sold said railroad ticket to one E. A. Metcalfe, he, the said Jannin, not being the agent of the said Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway Company for the purpose of selling tickets, and having no certificate of authority to make the sale of the same, etc. No objection was urged to the indictment, but it is insisted that the law of the 23d legislature, making it a penal offense for any other person than the agent of a railroad company to sell passage tickets, is unconstitutional (1) because the law prohibiting the selling of tickets by persons not having a certificate of authority to sell is not a police regulation adopted by the legislature in the legitimate exercise of the police power; (2) the law is invalid, in this: it delegates to railway companies the power to make the sale of tickets lawful or unlawful; (3) a railroad transportation ticket is property. In this connection, appellant contends that said act is violative of section 19 of the bill of rights, as follows: "No citizen of this state shall be deprived of life, liberty, property, immunities, * * * except by the due course of the law of the land." Section 26: "Perpetuities and monopolies are contrary to the genius of a free government, and shall never be allowed." These questions have all been so thoroughly discussed under similar laws of other states that it would appear to be a work of supererogation to reiterate what other courts have said on this subject, and, in the face of a number of able decisions of other states, we would not undertake to add anything new to the discussion of the questions here involved. See Com. v. Wilson, 14 Phila. 384; Fry v. State, 63 Ind. 560; Burdick v. People, 149 Ill. 600, 36 N. E. 948; State v. Corbett, 57 Minn. 345, 59 N. W. 317; State v. Bernheim (Mont.) 49 Pac. 441; People ex rel. Tyroler v. Warden of City Prison, 26 App. Div. 228, 50 N. Y. Supp. 56, and reported in the court of appeals of New York, 51 N. E. 1006. By reference to the above cases, it will be seen that this constitutional question with reference to scalpers' tickets, in one shape or another, has been before the courts of the several states mentioned, and the holding was in favor of the constitutionality of the law in all of said states except New York. In Tyroler's Case, from that state, it was held, on a proceeding in habeas corpus to the appellate division of the supreme court, by a unanimous court, that the scalpers' law of that state was constitutional, in that it did not deprive a citizen of his property without due course of the law of the land, nor did it confer an exclusive privilege upon any class of persons so as to be a monopoly, and it was within the police power of the state legislature to pass such a law. It was, moreover, held that it was not violative of any provision of the constitution or laws of the United States with reference to interstate commerce. This case was taken to the court of appeals of said state, and there, by a divided court of four to three, the law was held to be unconstitutional. In that case the learned chief justice appears to consider that the passage ticket of a railway company is property, and any law which attempts to restrain or inhibit the disposition and sale of same is pro tanto a violation of the constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Again, that opinion holds that the attempt of the legislature to confine the sale of railroad passage tickets to the agents named in the act was the creation of a monopoly, and that the legislation in question inhibited by said provisions of the constitution of New York did not come within the police power of the legislature. A number of cases are cited in favor of the opinion. It will be observed, however, that there is a marked distinction between the New York law and our statute on this...