Jones v. State

• Decision Date: 22 June 1955
• Docket Number: No. 161,161
• Citation: 207 Md. 481,115 A.2d 273
• Parties: C. Edward JONES v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 481

207 Md. 481

115 A.2d 273

C. Edward JONES v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 161.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 22, 1955.

Ellis Levin and Hilary W. Gans, Baltimore (Richard H. Lerch and Calman A. Levin, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Stedman Prescott, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. (C. Ferdinand Sybert, Atty. Gen., Anselm Sodaro, State's Atty., and J. Harold Grady, Deputy State's Atty., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and HAMMOND, JJ.

COLLINS, Judge.

This is an appeal from the conviction of appellant for violation of a Baltimore City ordinance, by two trial judges sitting without a jury.

By Chapter 28, Laws of Maryland, Extraordinary Session, 1948, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore (the City), by an enabling act was authorized by the Legislature to issue certificates of indebtedness, the proceeds of which were to be used for the purposes of providing places for storing, parking and servicing self-propelled vehicles, and to create a commission with full power to administer and supervise these expenditures. This commission was known as the Off-Street Parking Commission (the Commission). Ordinances were adopted by the City to carry out this Enabling Act. In 1948, C. Edward Jones, appellant, was appointed a member of this Commission. He was convicted by the trial judges on the second count of an indictment charging him with violation of Ordinance No. 94 as codified in Article 1, Section 9, of the Baltimore City Code, 1950 Edition. The essential parts of this Ordinance follow: 'It shall not be lawful for any officer of this corporation, * * * to be engaged or concerned, directly or indirectly, in any contract for work done or to be done on account of the city, or in which the city is or may be in any way concerned * * *.'

The appellant contends that Ordinance No. 94 is unconstitutional because its title is defective. It is admitted by the State, appellee, that the title of this ordinance, approved May 20, 1890, was defective when originally passed. However, the State contends that this defect was corrected by the subsequent codification thereof and the adoption of the Code of 1892. With this contention we agree. This Ordinance was printed in the Code of 1892 as Section 48 of Article 1. That code was duly adopted and legalized by Ordinance No. 216, dated October 14, 1893, which was titled: 'An Ordinance to adopt and legalize the new City Code prepared by John Prentiss Poe.' This Ordinance reads as follows: 'Sect. 1. Be it enacted and ordained by the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, That the new City Code, prepared by John Prentiss Poe, containing the Public Local Laws of the State of Maryland relating to the City of Baltimore, and the General Ordinances of the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore in force on the first day of October 1893, be, and the same is hereby approved and adopted.' This Ordinance No. 94 of May 20, 1890, has been included in all subsequent codes of Baltimore City as the law of the City. In State for Use of Emerson v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 171 Md. 584, 190 A. 231, 237, the title of Chapter 96 of an act passed in 1910 was defective. By Chapter 790 of the Acts of 1912 the codification of the local laws for Montgomery County was submitted and adopted under the title of 'An Act to repeal Article 16 of the Code of Public Local Laws of Maryland, title 'Montgomery County,' and the several acts and parts of acts amendatory thereof, or inconsistent therewith, and to re-enact said Article 16 with amendments under appropriate sub-titles.' In the codification thus made and enacted, Chapter 96 of the Acts of 1910 was included. In answering the contention that the Act was unconstitutional, this Court there said: 'In the condification thus made and enacted, chapter 96 of the Acts of 1910 was included. So, as has been recently decided, whatever defects of title may have existed in the prior statute, by reason of a failure in the title to meet the requirements of the Constitution of Maryland, the passage of the Code of Public Local Laws of Montgomery county, with the incorporation of the statute with the defective title, cured the defect in title of the codified statute as the title of the statute enacting the Code complies with the provisions of section 29 of article 3 of the Constitution of Maryland. State v. Coblentz, 167 Md. 523, 526, 175 A. 340; Dorchester County Commissioners v. Meekins, 50 Md. 28, 40; Lankford v. County Com'rs of Somerset County, 73 Md. 105, 108, 20 A. 1017, 22 A. 412, 11 L.R.A. 491; Garrison v. Hill, 81 Md. 551, 555, 32 A. 191; Johnson v. Luers, 129 Md. 521, 530, 99 A. 710; 59 C.J. §§ 376, 489, pp. 799, 892 [82 C.J.S., Statutes, §§ 215, 274]; 25 R.C.L. § 111, p. 867. So, it must be held that sections 846 and 847 of article 16 of the Code of Public Local Laws cannot be held illegal because of defect of title since the codification of 1912.' See also Bond v. State, 78 Md. 523, 28 A. 407. The previous defect in the title was therefore corrected and the Ordinance is valid.

The appellant, as a further argument that Ordinance No. 94 is unconstitutional, contends that it is too vague and fails to fix an ascertainable standard of guilt. With this contention we do not agree. Of course, a duly enacted statute is presumed to be constitutional. Hammond v. Lancaster, 194 Md. 462, 71 A.2d 474, 483; Shub v. Simpson, 196 Md. 177, 75 A.2d 842, 76 A.2d 332. Among other cases relied on by the appellant are: Hoke v. Lawson, 175 Md. 246, 1 A.2d 77, where the word 'skill' in a statute providing for the licensing of pinball machines was held too indefinite, and Loughran Co. v. Lord Baltimore Candy & Tobacco Co., 178 Md. 38, 12 A.2d 201, 205, in which this Court held that the clause "Sales * * * at prices which cannot be justified by existing market conditions * * *." was too indefinite. As contended by the appellant and as stated in United States v. Cardiff, 344 U.S. 174, 73 S.Ct. 189, 190, 97 L.Ed. 200: 'Words which are vague and fluid, cf. United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U.S. 81, 41 S.Ct. 298, 65 L.Ed. 516 , may be as much of a trap for the innocent as the ancient laws of Caligula. We cannot sanction taking a man by the heels for refusing to grant the permission which this Act on its face apparently gave him the right to withhold. That would be making an act criminal without fair and effective notice.' Assuming, as contended by the appellant, that the word 'concerned', as here used, is equivalent to the word 'interested' Philadelphia Suburban Water Co. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, 168 Pa. Super. 360, 78 A.2d 46, we think the statute is definite enough to fix an ascertainable standard of guilt.

In Foote v. State, 59 Md. 264, the statute provided a penalty for 'any person who shall brutally assault' his wife. This Court held that the term 'brutal' was 'definite enough to the common apprehension of mankind.' In State v. Magaha, 182 Md. 122, 32 A.2d 477, the term 'reasonable care' was held to be a degree of care which a person of ordinary prudence would exercise under similar circumstances and established a standard of conduct sufficiently definite to afford an ascertainable test of guilt, and did not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution or Article 23 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. In Glickfield v. State, 203 Md. 400, 101 A.2d 229, 231, the appellant was convicted of violating a statute which provided that "Any person or persons who shall bribe or attempt to bribe any persons participating in or connected in any way with any athletic contest held in this State shall be deemed guilty of bribery * * *." Code 1951, art. 27, § 30. The statute was attacked on the ground that it was so vague as to violate the constitutional guarantee of due process. It was there held that the words of the statute must be accorded the meaning naturally given them in ordinary usage, that a person of ordinary intelligence reading that statute would not be in doubt as to the nature of the acts condemned, and that a conviction under that statute would protect the defendant from a subsequent prosecution for the same offense.

In Black's Law Dictionary, 3rd Ed., 1944, in which definitions are given with cases cited, the word 'directly' is defined as 'In a direct way without anything intervening; not by secondary, but by direct, means,' and the word 'indirectly' is defined as 'A term almost always used in law in opposition to 'direct,' though not the only antithesis of the latter word, as the terms 'collateral' and 'cross' are sometimes used in contrast with 'direct." In Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd Ed., the word 'indirectly' is defined as 'remotely connected with.' Black defines the word 'concerned' as 'Relating to; pertaining to; affecting; involving; being substantially engaged in or taking part in.' The meaning of these words are certainly understood by persons of ordinary intelligence. Two Connecticut cases, cited by the appellee, are very helpful on this question. In State v. Zazzaro, 1941, 128 Conn. 160, 20 A.2d 737, 738, the statute forbade a stockholder of a corporation manufacturing or wholesaling alcoholic liquor to "lend money or otherwise extend credit, directly or indirectly', to any permittee holding a retail liquor permit'. Cum.Supp.Conn.1939, § 968e. It was contended that these words were so vague and uncertain as to make the statute unconstitutional. It was there said in holding the section constitutional as not violative of the due process clause: 'We fail to discover anything arbitrary or unreasonable in this. The prohibition has direct and rational relation to its purpose. The test of certainty in a criminal statute is discussed in State v. Andrews, 108 Conn. 209, 213, 142 A. 840, 841, where it is said that such statutes will not be held void for uncertainty 'if any practicable or sensible effect may be given to them.' Such...