State v. Church

• Decision Date: 06 May 1927
• Docket Number: No. 560.,560.
• Parties: STATE v. CHURCH.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

137 A. 222

STATE

v. CHURCH.

No. 560.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

May 6, 1927.

Certified from District Court, Second Judicial District.

Albert S. Church was charged with operating an automobile on a public highway while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. On certified questions. Questions answered and papers sent back to lower court.

Louis V. Jackvony, 3d Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

Lee & McCanna and Alfred H. O. Boudreau, all of Providence, for defendant.

SWEENEY, J. This is a criminal complaint brought in the district court of the Second judicial district. The defendant is charged with operating an automobile on a public highway in the town of Narragansett while under the influence of intoxicating liquor against the statute of the state. The complaint is made by a member of the department of state police. Defendant, after being arraigned, filed six pleas. Two of the pleas are former jeopardy, and the others attack the constitutionality of the act creating the department of state police, known as chapter 588, Public Laws, January Session, 1925. The constitutional questions raised by these pleas have been certified to this court for hearing and determination as required by section 5109, Gen. Laws 1923.

Defendant avers in his pleas that said chapter 588 is violative of his rights under articles 5 and 14 of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and section 10, article 1, of the Constitution of this state, because section 8 of said chapter provides no rules defining the duties of the members of the state police and authorizes them to enforce in any town of this state the ordinances and regulations of any other town. This averment is based upon the first sentence of said section 8, which provides that members of the department shall have and may exercise in any part of the state, with regard to the enforcement of the criminal laws, all powers of sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, town sergeants, chiefs of police, police officers, and constables.

We cannot consider the merits of defendant's claim that chapter 588 is unconstitutional because his rights are not affected by the alleged unconstitutional part of section 8. He is charged with violating a state statute and not a town ordinance. In Sayles v. Foley, 38 R. I. 484, 96 A. 340, we held that a person who attacks the constitutionality of a statute must show that the alleged unconstitutional feature of the law injures him and that he is within the class of persons affected by it. In Sackett v. Paine, 46 R. I. 439, 128 A. 209, we said it is settled law that a person cannot question the constitutionality of an act unless his rights...