Ratcliff v. State

• Decision Date: 06 October 1926
• Docket Number: (No. 8606.)
• Citation: 289 S.W. 1072
• Parties: RATCLIFF v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

289 S.W. 1072

RATCLIFF v. STATE.

(No. 8606.)

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

October 6, 1926.

State's Rehearing Denied January 26, 1927.

Appeal from District Court, Potter County; Henry S. Bishop, Judge.

A. W. Ratcliff was convicted for violating the Open Port Law, and he appeals. Reversed, and prosecution ordered dismissed.

Charles Murphy and E. T. Branch, both of Houston, and Reeder & Reeder, of Amarillo, for appellant.

E. A. Simpson, of Amarillo, Alex Pope, of Dallas, N. A. Stedman and Sam D. Stinson, State's Atty., both of Austin, and Nat Gentry, Jr., Asst. State's Atty., of Tyler, for the State.

LATTIMORE, J.

Conviction in district court of Potter county of a violation of what is known as the Open Port Law, with punishment fixed at one year in the penitentiary.

The Fourth Called Session of the Thirty-Sixth Legislature enacted the Open Port Law, which comprises chapter 10 of the 1925 P. C. Its design evidently was to prevent such interference, of the kind designated, with employees of common carriers as would injuriously affect the movement of commerce. It is charged in the indictment in this case that appellant made an assault on one Mullens, who was employed by a named railway company as a guard, and that his services as such were necessary to the movement of commerce, and that such assault was an act reasonably calculated, intended, and designed to cause said Mullens to desist from performing such services for said railway company. The statement of facts herein is not approved by the trial court, for which reason several matters urged and briefed cannot be considered.

The constitutionality of said law is attacked upon various ground, and, in order that our conclusions in regard thereto may be understood, it will be necessary to quote certain portions of said statute.

Article 1094 of said chapter 10 is as follows:

"It shall be unlawful for any one by or through the use of any physical violence or by threatening the use of any physical violence, or by intimidation or threatening destruction of his property to interfere with or molest or harass any person or persons engaged in the work of loading or unloading or transporting any commerce within this state."

Article 1095 thereof refers to conspiracies and is not material to our conclusions.

Article 1096 is as follows:

"Every person who shall through any act or written communication or conversation with any person or persons engaged in loading, unloading or transporting any commerce by any common carrier in Texas, or with the father, mother, wife, sister, brother, child or children of such person or persons while so engaged, or during the hours of day or night while not engaged in such work and when employed for such work, which is reasonably calculated, intended or designed to cause such person or persons so engaged to desist from performing such work through fear of physical violence or destruction of his property, shall be deemed to have intimidated, molested or harassed such person or persons engaged in the work of loading or unloading or transporting commerce within this state."

The penalty clause (article 1099) fixes a penalty for the use of physical violence or threats to take life on the part of one convicted for a violation of this statute at confinement in the penitentiary for a period of from one to five years.

Inspection of article 1094, supra, makes evident the fact that same wholly omits any reference to the purpose, intent, or knowledge of the person penalized for making the assault or using the physical violence mentioned therein.

It is now, and was for many years before the passage of this act, the law in this state that one who used physical violence to another, without circumstances of aggravation, was guilty of a simple assault, punishable only by a fine. This general law of the state was not repealed by the passage of said Open Port Act. Considering for the present only said article 1094 of said act, we have then, as the law of this state now, that one who slaps A., he not being an employee of a common carrier engaged in commerce, is only guilty of a simple assault, while if he slaps B., who is such employee, he is guilty of a felony and may be sent to the penitentiary.

Conceding that the maintenance of uninterrupted commerce is a matter of such grave import to the whole people as to justify the enactment of proper statutes penalizing those persons whose acts hinder or prevent the movement of such commerce, we are still confronted with the question as to whether a law, having for its purpose the protection of those engaged in moving commerce, is valid, which fails to require that the hindering or preventing act, on the part of the person charged, be with specific intent, or, at least, with some degree of knowledge on the part of the perpetrator that his act will have such effect. In our opinion, this question must be answered in the negative.

Such enactment violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, guaranteeing to all persons equal protection of the law, and is class legislation without pretense that the classification is other than arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.

To illustrate, A. and B. are on the street. A. is an employee of a common carrier engaged in commerce. While not at the moment actually engaged in his work, he is protected by the terms of articles 1096 and 1097 of said act, if same be valid. B. is a clerk in a store. These two parties meet C. and D., to whom they are strangers. A. and B. make statements or indulge in conduct deemed insulting by C. and D., who attack them, and C. assaults A. and D. assaults B. We have then this situation under the above law. C., who assaults A., is liable to go to the penitentiary, while D., for his assault on B., is subject only to a fine. Looking at the situation from another angle, it may be observed that C. is liable to go to the penitentiary for his assault on A., without any knowledge on his part that A. was engaged as the servant of a common carrier and wholly without intent on his part to interfere with the movement of commerce by means of said assault. He is thus made a felon for an act which, under the general statute, is a simple assault, and regardless of the fact that he has no knowledge or intent such as to put him in a different class from his companion D. Can a Legislature constitutionally say that one who assaults such employee under such circumstances is guilty of a felony, while one who is similarly situated, with like knowledge, intent, and purpose, and in like manner, assaults the companion of such employee, he being a doctor, lawyer, merchant, banker, or common laboror, is guilty only of a simple assault? We think not.

The courts uniformly hold that, to be valid, laws must require the same treatment of all who are in like conditions and circumstances. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 6 S. Ct. 1064, 30 L. Ed. 220; Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540, 22 S. Ct. 431, 46 L. Ed. 679; Southern Ry. Co. v. Greene, 216 U. S. 400, 30 S. Ct. 287, 54 L. Ed. 536, 17 Ann. Cas 1247; German Alliance Ins. Co. v. Hale, 219 U. S. 307, 31 S. Ct. 246, 55 L. Ed. 229; Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68, 7 S. Ct. 350, 30 L. Ed. 578; Marchant v. Penn. Ry. Co., 153 U. S. 380, 14 S. Ct. 894, 38 L. Ed. 751. To the same effect are the utterances of all our text-book writers.

We recognize the legislative right to pass laws with reference to assaults, etc., wherein for named or sufficient reasons the act of the accused passes into a more or less serious class with a greater or less punishment, as when one assaults a woman, child, infirm person, peace officer, or with a deadly weapon, or with intent to kill, etc., and, as above stated, we are not to be understood as holding that the lawmakers may not create properly an offense based on threats, assaults, etc., toward or on those engaged in moving commerce, when such law is so framed as that the intent or purpose of the actor to so hinder or prevent is made the basis for such classification, but we find no such element in said article 1094, supra.

But, it may be properly insisted that in construing statutes, all parts must be looked to and paragraphs and articles must be viewed in connection with the whole enactment, and that, in the particular instance, article 1096 (quoted above) must be read and considered in determining the constitutionality of this act. Said article 1096 is so involved in its construction, phrases, and sentences as to make it difficult to know what was intended. It is a fundamental principle that, to be a valid law, the enactment must be so framed as that it may be understood. In this connection, we deem it not inappropriate to call attention to the language of article 6 of our Penal Code, which is as follows:

"Whenever it appears that a provision of the penal law is so indefinitely framed or of such doubtful construction that it cannot be understood, either from the language in which it is expressed, or from some other written law of the state, such penal law shall be regarded as wholly inoperative."

Under the authorities, it is permissible, in an effort to arrive at an understanding of any enactment, to transpose same, if necessary. See section 386, Lewis' Sutherland Statutory Construction, vol. 2. In trying to arrive at the meaning of article 1096, we have transposed the words of said article, putting subjects and predicates more nearly together and qualifying phrases where they seem to belong. Doing this and omitting words and phrases not necessary to the determination of the question of the intelligibility of the article, we have the following:

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