State v. Benthall

• Citation: 82 N.C. 664
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Decision Date: 31 January 1880
• Parties: STATE v. JOHN BENTHALL, JR.

82 N.C. 664

STATE

v.JOHN BENTHALL, JR.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1880.

INDICTMENT for a Misdemeanor, tried at Fall Term, 1879, of HERTFORD Superior Court, before Gudger, J.

This was a motion to quash a bill of indictment. The bill was found at spring term, 1879, and is as follows: “The jurors for the state upon their oaths present, that John Benthall, Jr., late of the county of Hertford, and state of North Carolina, was on the first day of April, 1878, a resident of said county and the owner of property in St. John's township and county aforesaid, subject to taxation, the said John Benthall, Jr., being then and there liable for the tax on said property, and for a poll tax. And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do further present, that the said John Benthall, Jr., the owner of property in the said township, subject to taxation, the said John Benthall, Jr., being then and there liable for said tax on said property, and for a poll tax as aforesaid, did unlawfully fail to give himself in and to list said property so subject to taxation before the list-taker and county commissioners of said county, on or before the first day of June, A. D. 1878, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state.” To which indictment the defendant pleaded ““not guilty,” and then moved to quash the bill on the ground that justices of the peace had exclusive jurisdiction of all such offences, and that the superior court had no jurisdiction of this case. The motion was sustained by the court, and Grandy, solicitor for the state, appealed.

Attorney General, for the State .

No counsel for defendant.

ASHE, J.

The defendant is indicted under section twenty of the act of 1876-'77, ch. 155, in which it is declared that “all persons who are liable for a poll tax and shall wilfully fail to give themselves in, and all persons who own property and wilfully fail to list it within the time allowed, before the list-taker and the county commissioners, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction therefor shall be fined not more than fifty dollars, or imprisoned not more than thirty days.” And it is provided in section seven of the act of 1879, ch. 92, “that justices of the peace shall have exclusive original jurisdiction of all criminal matters arising within their counties, where the punishment now or which shall be hereafter prescribed by law, shall not exceed a fine of fifty dollars or imprisonment for thirty days.”

The last act was ratified on the fourth day of March, 1879, and the bill of indictment found on the third Monday after the fourth Monday in March, 1879. This would seem to settle the question of jurisdiction. The grounds for claiming jurisdiction in the superior court do not appear upon the record, and we are left to conjecture. Possibly the omission of the word “exclusive” in section twenty-seven of article four of the amended constitution, may be held to indicate the intention of the framers of that instrument to authorize the legislature to give concurrent jurisdiction with the superior courts, to justices of the peace in criminal cases where the punishment cannot exceed a fine of fifty dollars or imprisonment for thirty days. However this may be, the twelfth section of the same article of the constitution provides, that “the general assembly shall have no power to deprive...