Lakes v. Goodloe

Decision Date23 June 1922
Citation195 Ky. 240,242 S.W. 632
PartiesLAKES v. GOODLOE.
CourtKentucky Court of Appeals

Original petition for writ of prohibition by Matt Lakes against John D. Goodloe. Demurrer to petition sustained, and writ denied.

R. C Oldham and G. T. Ross, both of Richmond, and Snyder & Adkins of Harlan, for plaintiff.

Chas I. Dawson, Atty. Gen., J. P. Chenault, Co. Atty., of Richmond, and J. C. W. Beckham, Elwood Hamilton, and Beckham, Hamilton & Beckham, all of Louisville, for defendant.

HURT C.J.

The plaintiff, Matt Lakes, was arrested under a warrant which accused him of the offense of unlawfully having in his possession spirituous liquors, other than for sacramental, medicinal, scientific, or mechanical purposes, in Madison county. The warrant was issued by the defendant, as judge of the Madison quarterly court, before whom the plaintiff was carried by the arresting officer. A day was designated for the trial of the plaintiff, upon the charge stated in the warrant, and the judge of the quarterly court was intending to proceed to try him under the warrant and in accordance with the procedure provided for the trial of misdemeanors in the quarterly court, or before the judge of the county court, and to visit upon him, if guilty, the punishment prescribed for the offense by the prohibition act of March 22, 1922, which, in the instance of a first conviction, was a fine in a sum not less than $100 nor more than $300 and imprisonment for a term not less than 30 days nor more than 60 days, and as a result of a conviction the requirement that he execute bond to the Commonwealth in a sum not less than $1,000 nor exceeding $5,000, as might be fixed by the judge in his discretion, conditioned that plaintiff would be of good behavior and would not violate any of the laws relative to the sale, possession, transportation, or manufacture of intoxicating liquors for 12 months, and in default of the execution of the bond that he be imprisoned in the county jail for a period of 90 days.

The plaintiff thereupon instituted this action in this court praying for the granting of a writ permanently prohibiting the defendant from trying him upon the charge, or in any event causing him to undergo anything other than an examining trial.

The defendant interposed a general demurrer to the petition, and the cause is submitted upon same.

Ordinarily a petition for a writ of prohibition against a judge of a court of inferior jurisdiction to a circuit court will be dismissed when filed in this court, upon the ground that the petitioner has an adequate remedy by application to the circuit court, but, under the peculiar circumstances existing in this case, to make application to the circuit court would not afford an adequate remedy.

Plaintiff insists that chapter 33, Session Acts 1922, by virtue of which the proceedings against him are proposed and which authorizes his arrest, prosecution, and conviction for the offense of which he is accused in the warrant, is contrary to the provisions of both the state and federal Constitutions in many essentials, and is therefore void, and for such reason the defendant, as the county judge or judge of the quarterly court, is without jurisdiction to try or to impose upon him any of the penalties denounced by the provisions of the chapter supra.

As preliminary to the discussion of the many separate grounds as upon which the statute is assailed as being contrary to the rights and privileges guaranteed and granted to the citizens by the provisions of the state and federal Constitutions, it should be said that the legislative department of the government has supreme authority within the sphere of its powers, and its acts are immune from interference or disturbance from the judiciary, unless it transcends its powers by undertaking by legislation in some way to override the safeguards created by the provisions of the Constitution. The fact that a statute is drastic or impolitic or in the opinion of many not conducive to the best interests of the public, or deprives citizens of privileges which many think they ought to have, does not empower or authorize a court to set it aside or to render it inoperative, if the Legislature has not transcended its authority in enacting it. While this court has, by common acquiescence and precedent of more than a century, been invested with authority to determine when the Legislature exceeds its powers or does not exert them in the manner and according to the method which the Constitution prescribes, it must also be the judge of its own powers and authority, and is bound as scrupulously to exercise its functions, within the pale of its jurisdiction, and not to exceed it, as it is to lay a restraining hand upon the Legislature when it goes beyond its powers. If the judicial conscience did not impel adherence to such principle, our form of government, which has been builded with such care, would evolve into a judicial oligarchy, and the free representatives of the people, and through them the people themselves, would be shorn of the power to enact legislation, which was not, in the opinion of the judiciary, politic or expedient, although the foundation stone of our system rests upon the will and consent of the governed. The expediency of a statute, or whether or not the public weal demands its enactment, are political questions, which address themselves to the legislative department of the government, and with such phases of those questions the judiciary has nothing to do. So in the consideration of the provisions of the statute under consideration it is not within the province of this or any other court to set aside its provisions, because, in the opinion of many, its terms are more drastic than the public good demands, as the only question for the consideration of the courts is whether a provision of the statute is within the power of the Legislature to enact, and, if so, has it enacted it in the way provided by the Constitution?

Furthermore, in the determination of whether a legislative act does or does not contravene a constitutional requirement, the doctrine is well settled by a century of precedents, not only in this jurisdiction, but in every other jurisdiction, that the Legislature, when it has enacted a statute, is presumed to have done so in accordance with the constitutional requirements, and that its provisions are not contrary to any constitutional right, and unless, after the statute and the constitutional provisions have both been given a liberal construction with the purpose in view of sustaining the legislative action, it is yet found to be clearly in contravention of a constitutional requirement, the legislation must be upheld. Collins v. Henderson, 11 Bush, 72; Ragland v. Anderson, 125 Ky. 141, 100 S.W. 865, 30 Ky. Law Rep. 1199, 128 Am.St.Rep. 242; Aldridge v. Com., 192 Ky. 215, 232 S.W. 619; C. S. Co. v. Moreland, 126 Ky. 656, 104 S.W. 762, 31 Ky. Law Rep. 1075, 16 L.R.A. (N. S.) 470; Com. v. Robinson, 192 Ky. 374, 233 S.W. 791. This principle has been the outgrowth of the nature of our governmental system and the principles upon which it is founded, as it is considered to be more consistent with these principles that the will of the majority should prevail than that the courts should seek by one pretext and another, and upon doubtful grounds, to overturn the will of the majority.

(a) It is insisted for the plaintiff that the Legislature exceeded its powers when it attempted to make the mere possession of spirituous liquors a public offense, and that as a consequence he has been arrested and proposed to be punished for an act which is not unlawful, and which the Legislature has no power to make unlawful. Section 1 of the legislative act in question provides as follows:

"That it shall be unlawful to manufacture, sell, barter, give away or keep for sale, or unlawfully have in possession or transport spirituous, vinous, malt or intoxicating liquors, except for sacramental, medicinal, scientific or mechanical purposes in the Commonwealth of Kentucky."

Section 9 of the act provides as follows:

"No person or persons, company or corporation, shall possess or have in possession any spirituous, vinous or malt liquors unless same have been lawfully acquired, and are intended to be used lawfully; and in any suit, prosecution, proceeding or action, or motion concerning same, the burden of proving that same have been acquired and are intended to be used lawfully, shall be upon the defendant or defendants."

It will be observed that the latter section defines the liquors of which the possession is unlawful and the relation which the possessor must bear to them to make the possession unlawful. The mere possession is not made an offense, but the possession must have been unlawfully acquired or the possession must be attained with an intention on the part of the possessor to make an unlawful use of the liquor in order to constitute the offense. The statute goes one step further than our former prohibitory laws, which made the possession with an intention to make an illegal use of the liquor a public offense, but visited no penalty upon the possession acquired in an unlawful way. The present statute makes it unlawful to manufacture, sell, barter, or give away the designated liquors, except for sacramental, medicinal, scientific, or mechanical purposes.

It is easy to see that the prohibition is in reality directed against the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage. The acts which the statute makes penal--the manufacture, sale gift, possession, keeping for sale, or transportation--are themselves entirely harmless and unproductive of the many evils which the partisans of sumptuary legislation rely upon to justify it, and no one pretends that the prohibition of these...

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