People v. Sayer
| Decision Date | 28 October 1910 |
| Citation | 246 Ill. 382,92 N.E. 900 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. SAYER. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Circuit Court, McHenry County; Charles H. Donnelly, Judge.
George J. Sayer was convicted of unlawful hunting on private lands without first obtaining permission, and he brings error. Affirmed.Stein, Mayer & Stein (Henry M. Rosenblum, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.
W. H. Stead, Atty. Gen., David R. Joslyn, State's Atty., and Charles E. Woodward (E. H. Waite, of counsel), for the People.
Upon a trial before a police magistrate in McHenry county, the plaintiff in error, George J. Sayer, was found guilty of unlawfully hunting with a gun on the lands of Charles C. Colby without first obtaining permission so to do, and was fined $10 and costs. Upon appeal to the circuit court of said county, a jury having been waived, the cause was tried by the court, and the defendant submitted the following proposition to be held as the law: ‘The court holds, as a matter of law, that section 28 of chapter 61 of the Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois is unconstitutional and void.’ The court refused to hold the proposition to be the law, and found the defendant guilty, and fined him $15 and costs. The record has been certified to this court as a return to a writ of error, and it is assigned for error on the record that the court refused to hold said proposition.
The title of the act under which the defendant was prosecuted is ‘An act for the protection of game, wild fowl and birds and to repeal certain acts relating thereto,’ being Hurd's Rev. St. 1909, c. 61. Section 28 makes it unlawful for any person to hunt with a gun or dog upon the grounds or lands of another without permission of the owner, agent, or occupant, and the first ground upon which this section is claimed to be void is that it conflicts with section 13 of article 4 of the Constitution, which provides that no act shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in the title. Under that provision an act is void as to any subject of legislation contained in the body of the act and not within the general terms of the title. The attempted application of the provision to section 28 is founded on the theory that the section merely declares unlawful a trespass upon the private grounds of another, and the next two sections impose penalties for such trespass, and that the sections have no rational connection with the purpose of the act declared in the title. The general rules to be applied in determining a question of that character have been frequently declared, and, in brief, they are as follows: The provision of the Constitution is to be construed liberally in favor of the validity of enactments, and although an act may have many diverse provisions for the accomplishment of the object expressed in the title, if they naturally and reasonably tend to effectuate that object they do not infringe the constitutional provision. Any means reasonably adapted to accomplish the purpose indicated by the title may be properly included in the act, and to render any provision void because not expressed in the title it must have no proper connection with or relation to such title. If all the provisions of an act relate to the same subject, which is indicated in the title, and are parts of it or incident to it, or reasonably connected with or auxiliary to the object expressed in the title, the provision of the Constitution is obeyed. Blake v. People, 109 Ill. 504;Larned v. Tiernan, 110 Ill. 173;Hudnall v. Ham, 172 Ill. 76, 49 N. E. 985;People v. Nelson, 133 Ill. 565, 27 N. E. 217;Christy v. Elliott, 216 Ill. 31, 74 N. E. 1035,1 L. R. A. (N. S.) 215, 108 Am. St. Rep. 196;People v. McBride, 234 Ill. 146, 84 N. E. 865,123 Am. St. Rep. 82.
The object of the act in question, as declared in the title, is the protection of game, wild fowl, and birds, and necessarily the provisions of the act are restrictive and prohibitive. In furtherance of that object the act prohibits absolutely the taking or killing of certain kinds of game, provides for open and closed seasons for various kinds, specifies the conditions under which certain kinds may be killed or captured, prohibits the...
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...purpose in regard to that subject, they are properly included in the act, and the title is sufficiently expressed. People v. Sayer, 246 Ill. 382, 92 N. E. 900;People v. McBride, 234 Ill. 146, 84 N. E. 865,123 Am. St. Rep. 82;Meul v. People, 198 Ill. 258, 64 N. E. 1106;Town of Manchester v. ......
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People ex rel. Fitzgerald v. Stitt
...of an act void because it was not expressed in the title it must have no connection with or relation to the title. People v. Sayer, 246 Ill. 382, 92 N. E. 900. All provisions which are incidental or auxiliary to or in any reasonable sense will promote the object as indicated in the title ar......
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...incident to it, and reasonably connected with or auxiliary to the object or purpose of the act as expressed in its title. People v. Sayer, 246 Ill. 382, 92 N. E. 900. This may be done by expressing the title of the act in a brief, general form, such as was done in this instance, or by so fr......