State v. Carroll

• Decision Date: 07 July 1922
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. CARROLL.

117 A. 694

97 Conn. 598

STATE v. CARROLL.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 7, 1922

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Christopher L. Avery Judge.

Information against Lawrence W. Carroll in two counts for violations of Pub. Acts 1919, c. 25, regulating standing room in theaters. From the granting of a motion to erase, the State appeals. No error.

Arnon A. Alling, State's Atty., and Walter M. Pickett, Asst State's Atty., both of New Haven, for the State.

Walter J. Walsh and Louis Sachs, both of New Haven, for appellee.

WHEELER, C.J.

The information charges in count 1 that the defendant failed to conspicuously display at each entrance to the Rialto Theater in New Haven any placard on which was plainly printed the standing room capacity of the place, and in count 2 that defendant violated the order of the chief of the state police limiting the number of persons to 50 who might occupy standing room in said theater, all contrary to chapter 25 of the Public Acts of 1919.

No question arises as to the sufficiency of the allegations of the information in charging a crime under this statute. The accused was arrested upon a bench warrant issued by the criminal superior court. Thereafter defendant moved that the case be erased from the docket because the court had no jurisdiction. The motion was granted, and the state appealed for error in granting the motion. The jurisdiction of the superior court depends upon whether it may try and punish the accused under the original information upon which the bench warrant was issued. The criminal superior court has jurisdiction of all criminal causes of which exclusive jurisdiction is not given to some other court. State v Buckeley, 61 Conn. 287, 374, 23 A. 186, 14 L.R.A. 657. And the attorney for the state may file an original criminal information in the superior court in any case within its jurisdiction. State v. Keena, 64 Conn. 212, 216, 29 A. 470. Justices of the peace have exclusive jurisdiction of all offenses punishable by a fine of not more than $25 or by imprisonment not more than 30 days or both.

In State v. Peck, 31 Conn. 466, we held that the superior court had no original jurisdiction over such offenses because the statute had given exclusive jurisdiction to justices of the peace. General Statutes, § 6542.

Under the statute of 1870 (Acts 1870, c. 93), perjury is punishable by " imprisonment in the county jail for a term not exceeding six months, or in the Connecticut state prison for a term not exceeding two years." In State v Davidson, 40 Conn. 281, we held that original jurisdiction was not conferred by this act upon the superior court, since the punishment might be one within the exclusive jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, and the only way the superior court could get jurisdiction was by an appeal from, or a binding over by the inferior tribunal. We said, too, that we must regard the cases of State v. Peck, supra, and State v. Pritchard, 35 Conn. 325, which considered and passed upon the principle involved in State v. Davidson, as decisive of that case. The principle of these decisions is as applicable to all inferior courts which are given exclusive jurisdiction of offenses, as it is to the justice of the peace. State v. Fox, 83 Conn. 286, 293, 76 A. 302, 19 Ann.Cas. 682. That principle is that the criminal superior court has no original jurisdiction of offenses over which an inferior court is given exclusive jurisdiction.

The penalty of the offenses charged in the information against this defendant is a fine of not more than $50 or imprisonment not more than 30 days, or both. The maximum penalty which the city court of the city of New Haven may impose is a fine of $200 or a penalty of six months imprisonment in a county jail. The city court of New Haven thus had exclusive jurisdiction of the offenses charged in the information, and the superior court has no original jurisdiction unless the exclusive jurisdiction is taken from the city court, or concurrent jurisdiction given to the superior court, by statute.

The state finds legislative sanction for its filing of an original information in this case in the statute first passed in 1874, which is now General Statutes, § 6599:

" An original information may be filed in the superior court against any person accused of crime in cases in which an inferior court may at its discretion, punish him or bind him over for trial."

In its first form it had a comma after " may" in the next to the last line and after " punish him" in the last line. We attach no significance to the use of the comma in the early form and its omission in the last form of this statute. The legislative intent was the same at each time.

The statute of 1874 overruled State v. Davidson, supra, and gave " to the superior court a jurisdiction it did not before possess."

" It was, in purpose," we say in State v. Keena, supra, " a law declaratory of the legislative intent, and, in effect, provided that thereafter the superior court should have original jurisdiction of all crimes where an inferior court in cases brought before it may either punish or bind over the accused, and that the mere fact of the Legislature removing the minimum punishment for a felony or other crime should not deprive the superior court of its original jurisdiction."

State v. Davidson held that " an inferior court might, upon complaint for perjury, either punish or bind over the accused," and under the act of 1873 the accused might have received the minimum punishment for this crime.

The act of 1874 intended to change this result. It accomplished its purpose by giving to the superior court original jurisdiction of all crimes over which an inferior court had this discretionary power. Its purpose was not, as the state claims, to give the superior court jurisdiction in all cases in which an inferior court may punish an accused. If so, the superior court would have original jurisdiction of all crimes of every...