Reid v. Wood

• Decision Date: 12 March 1883
• Citation: 102 Pa. 312
• Parties: Reid <I>versus</I> Wood.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

102 Pa. 312

Reid versus Wood.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

February 7, 1883.

March 12, 1883.

February 7th 1883.

Before MERCUR, C. J., GORDON, PAXSON, TRUNKEY, STERRETT, GREEN and CLARK, JJ.

CERTIORARI to the court of Common Pleas of Chester county: Of January Term 1883, No. 198.

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J. W. Barnard, for plaintiffs in error.—A summary conviction must find the special act done by the defendant, so as to enable the appellate court to see that it is a violation of law, and where the record only contains a conclusion from unrecorded facts, a superior court usually reverses the conviction: Commonwealth v. Nesbit, 10 Casey 398; Commonwealth v. Kemery, 2 Leg. Chron. 321. Everything necessary to sustain a summary conviction must appear on the face of the record: Philadelphia v. Campbell, 33 Leg. Int. 12. It was neither alleged in the complaint, nor attempted to be proved at the hearing, nor declared by the burgess on his own view, that the building was an illegal one, nor that it was built in defiance of the notice of July 1st. The evidence at the hearing was arbitrarily confined by the burgess to the service of a notice to remove the building, and that it had not been removed. Unless it appear by the record that evidence was had at the hearing in support of the claim, the judgment must be reversed: Lenore v. Ingram, 1 Phila. 519; Mochamer v. Wenner, 1 Luzerne, Legal Register 696; Sauser v. Werntz, 21 Pitts. L. J. 15; S. C., 1 Leg. Chron. 247. In summary convictions the magistrate is bound to set forth the evidence at length on his record, for the proof must appear on the record, to sustain every material charge: Commonwealth v. Cane, 2 Parsons 265. This record is defective in all these essential respects.

Wm. B. Waddell (with whom was George M. Rupert), for defendants in error.—The record shows a sufficient and substantial compliance with the rulings of the court, in cases of summary convictions, and exhibits all that is necessary to a conviction under the ordinance referred to: Commonwealth v. Borden, 11 P. F. S. 272; Byers & Davis v. Commonwealth, 6 Wright 89; Commonwealth v. Nesbit, 10 Casey 398; Commonwealth v. Cummings, 2 Clark 265.

If, however, the proceedings before the burgess should be considered irregular, it is submitted that they were not more irregular than this writ of certiorari. It was issued against James Bayard Wood, Chief Burgess of the borough of West Chester, and Marshall B. Hickman, George B. Hoopes, et al., Assistant Burgesses of said borough, who were not parties to the proceeding. The proceedings were instituted in the name of the Commonwealth, and no such case ever existed as is attempted to be brought before this court on this writ of certiorari. We, therefore, submit that under the authority of Specht v. The Commonwealth, 12 Harris 103, the court can do nothing but quash the writ.

Mr. Justice PAXSON delivered the opinion of the court, March 12th 1883.

We are asked to quash this writ of certiorari upon the ground that the suit below was brought in the name of the Commonwealth while the certiorari was directed to the chief burgess of the borough of West Chester. An examination of the record shows that the suit below was commenced in the name of the Commonwealth and for this reason the chief burgess might, perhaps, have been justified in declining to send up the record. But he has sent it, and it requires but an amendment of the writ, to make it conform to the burgess's record. This, we think, may be done, as it is the merest technicality: Specht v....