State v. Breaux

• Decision Date: 14 December 1908
• Docket Number: 17,361
• Citation: 47 So. 876,122 La. 514
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. BREAUX In re BREAUX

47 So. 876

122 La. 514

STATE v. BREAUX

In re BREAUX

No. 17,361

Supreme Court of Louisiana

December 14, 1908

L. J Breaux was convicted of unlawfully prescribing intoxicating liquors for a patient, and brings certiorari. Judgment held void.

Ralph W. Elliott and Howard Edwin Bruner (John Lewis Kennedy, of counsel), for relator.

Respondent Judge, pro se.

OPINION

BREAUX C.J.

Relator asks us to review the proceedings in this case in accordance with his petition for a writ of certiorari.

We are called upon to construe Act No. 85, p. 124, of the General Assembly of 1886. This is the first time that this act is before us for consideration.

The relator was brought before the court to answer to an information against him. As the form of the information is of some importance, we insert here the second paragraph of that instrument:

"That one, L. J. Breaux, being a physician and practitioner of medicine, at the parish aforesaid, on the thirteenth day of September, 1908, said day being a Sunday, did wilfully and lawfully prescribe spirituous and intoxicating liquors for D Arcenaux, when said spirituous liquors were not administered by the said L. J. Breaux, physician and practitioner aforesaid, in case of sickness, as provided by law."

The defendant was tried before the judge of the district court, found guilty, and sentenced under the terms of the statute.

During the trial he interposed the defense, on motion to quash the information, that Act No. 85, p. 124, of 1886, is in contravention of article 31 of the Constitution; that this act violates the Bill of Rights, as it imposes cruel and unusual punishment; that it provides for a greater punishment for the person aiding and abetting than for the person actually committing the crime.

In the alternative the defendant urged that Act No. 85, p. 124, of 1886 embraces more than one object, to wit, the maintenance of the liquor license.

We copy the third ground literally:

"If the Court should hold that the above grounds are not well taken, then in that case the Court must construe said Act 85 of 1886 as embracing more than one object, which is expressed in its title, and in this case the information filed herein is void by reason of the fact that it does not set out an act as in violation of the laws of Louisiana as said Act has for its object the maintenance of the liquor license of the State of Louisiana and has no connection with and makes no reference to what is known as the Sunday Law."

After the relator had been convicted, he moved the court to arrest judgment, urging as grounds therefor the matters set forth in the motion to quash, and, further, that the bill of information charged no offense defined by, known to, or penalized under the laws of Louisiana.

Before this court relator alleged that he was without other remedy, and for that reason the rule nisi was issued in accordance with his petition.

The motion to quash was overruled, we think properly. We will now state our reasons for thus holding:

They are that Act No. 85, p. 124, of 1886 is legal and constitutional; that the title has, and also the statute, but one object, and that relator has no good ground to allege that either the title or the statute has two objects. The act prohibits a physician or practitioner from prescribing intoxicants in the attempt to evade or to assist any person in evading the payment of any license required by the state or corporation, either parochial or municipal; that any one thus offending shall be guilty of a crime, and upon conviction shall be fined not less than $ 100 or more than $ 500, and be imprisoned not less than 30 days and not more than 4 months.

The title and the body of the act: The dual objects alleged:

The title does not contain an extended reference to every detail and every minor object forming part of the object itself of the statute. It clearly indicates the purpose. It specifies all that is necessary in a title.

The statute is directed against any physician or medical practitioner who prescribes to the end of enabling persons to evade the payment of a license. In the second part of the statute the terms are directed against the practitioner who evades, or assists persons who evade, any law or ordinance by selling intoxicants.

There is oneness in so far as the offending practitioner is concerned; there is only one purpose -- it relates exclusively to the practitioner before mentioned.

In furtherance of the purpose, the same penalty is imposed against a physician who assists in evading the payment of a license or in the other violation of the statute, forming its second part.

This does not afford a ground to set aside the statute as having two objects. In this instance it has only the one object before stated, and, although in its application it relates to a class of offenders, it does not take away from the statute its oneness.

Moreover, jurisprudence has not heretofore held, even where there are different special objects, if they form part of one object, that it is objectionable to the extent of rendering the setting aside of the statute necessary.

The laws regarding registration are of that character -- election and other statutes -- and their constitutionality has been maintained.

This court has decided that particular objects in a statute forming part of a general object are not good ground to decree nullity. State v. Henderson, 32 La.Ann. 781.

The Sunday law:

The point is made here that Act No. 85, p. 124, of 1886 is independent of the Sunday law, and does not refer to and is not connected with it.

Conceding for the argument that it does not, it yet remains that the law prohibits a physician from prescribing intoxicants in violation of law as stated in the statute.

That prohibition is effective in order that the state may collect its licenses, and it is equally as effective in order that other laws on the subject of prohibition be not violated.

If the act was committed on a Sunday, it then violates the Sunday law. If on election day, or any other day or place when or where liquor should not be sold, it is equally as violative of the law.

At this point the defense is that from the viewpoint above the law has two objects, thereby reiterating a previous ground regarding the dual objects of the law.

The Sunday law has not a purpose so entirely...