State Ex Rel. Green v. Capehart

• Decision Date: 06 June 1939
• Citation: 138 Fla. 492,189 So. 708
• Parties: STATE ex rel. GREEN et al. v. CAPEHART, Chief of Police.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

189 So. 708

138 Fla. 492

STATE ex rel. GREEN et al. v. CAPEHART, Chief of Police.

Florida Supreme Court

June 6, 1939

Error to Circuit Court, Broward County; George W. Tedder, Judge.

Habeas corpus proceedings by the State, on the relation of William Green and others, against J. R. Capehart, as chief of police of the city of Hollywood. Judgment remanding petitioners to custody, and petitioners bring error.

Reversed.

COUNSEL J. H. Lathero, of Fort Lauderdale, for plaintiffs in error.

C. H Landefeld, Jr., of Hollywood, for defendant in error.

OPINION

BUFORD Justice.

Writ of error brings for review judgment in habeas corpus proceedings remanding petitioners to the custody of Respondent.

The return shows that petitioners were charged by affidavits with the offense prescribed by Ordinance No. 320 of the City of Hollywood, Florida, which Ordinance, inter alia, provides:

'Section 1. Any person of sufficient ability who shall refuse or neglect to support his family; any common prostitute; any window peeper; any person who engages in an illegal occupation or business; any person who shall be drunk or intoxicated or engaged in any indecent or obscene conduct in any public place; any vagrant; any person who is found begging in a public place; any person found loitering in a house of ill-fame or prostitution, or place where prostitution or lewdness is practiced, encouraged or allowed any person who shall loiter in or about any police station police headquarters building, county jail, hospital, court building or any other place or public building for the purpose of soliciting employment of legal services and/or the services of sureties upon criminal recognizances; any person who shall be found jostling or roughly crowding people unnecessarily in a public place, shall be deemed a disorderly person. Proof of recent reputation for engaging in an illegal occupation or business shall be prima facie evidence of being engaged in an illegal occupation or business.

'Section 2. All persons who shall make, aid, countenance or assist in making improper noise, riot, disturbance, breach of the peace or diversion tending to a breach of the peace, within the limits of the City; all persons who shall collect in bodies or crowds for unlawful purposes, or for any purpose, to the annoyance or disturbance of other persons; all persons who are idle or dissolute and go about begging; all persons who use or exercise any juggling or other unlawful games or plays; all persons who are found in houses of ill-fame or gaming houses; all persons lodging in or found at any time in out-houses, sheds, barns, stables or unoccupied buildings or underneath sidewalks, or lodging in the open air and not giving a good account of themselves; all persons who shall wilfully assault another in said City, or be engaged in or aid or abet in any fight, quarrel or other disturbance in said City; all persons who stand, loiter, or stroll about in any place in said City waiting or seeking to obtain money or other valuable things from others by trick or fraud or to aid or assist therein; all persons who shall engage in any fraudulent scheme, device or trick to obtain money or other valuable thing in any place in said City, or who shall aid or abet or in any manner be concerned therein all touts, ropers, steerers, or cappers, so called, for any gambling room or house who shall ply or attempt to ply their calling on any public street in said City; all persons found loitering about any hotel, block, barroom, dram-shop, gambling house or disorderly house, or wandering about the streets either by night or by day without any known lawful means of support, or without being able to give a satisfactory account of themselves; all persons who shall have or carry any pistol, knife, dirk knuckles, slung-shot,...