State v. Davidson, 212.

• Decision Date: 14 April 1936
• Docket Number: No. 212.,212.
• Citation: 184 A. 330
• Parties: STATE v. DAVIDSON, Judge.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

184 A. 330

STATE

v. DAVIDSON, Judge.

No. 212.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

April 14, 1936.

Certiorari proceeding by the State against Robert B. Davidson, Judge of the Passaic County Court of Quarter Sessions, to review the action of the defendant in quashing certain indictments charging Thomas D. Saxe and Alexander Laiks with engaging in the insurance business without the requisite license.

Quashing of indictments set aside, and indictments returned to Passaic Quarter Sessions.

Argued January term, 1936, before CASE and BODINE, JJ.

David T. Wilentz, Atty. Gen., Louis J. Cohen, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Arthur C. Dunn, Prosecutor of the Pleas, of Paterson, for the State.

Samuel Hilfman, of Passaic, for Thomas D. Saxe.

Aaron Heller, of Passaic, for Alexander Laiks.

CASE, Justice.

The writ of certiorari brings up the action of Judge Davidson of the Passaic quarter sessions in quashing certain indictments returned to the Passaic oyer and terminer charging Thomas D. Saxe and Alexander Laiks with engaging in the insurance business in the city of Passaic without the requisite license. The indictments ground in section 88 of an act entitled "An Act to provide for the regulation and incorporation of insurance companies and to regulate the transaction of insurance business in this state." Chapter 134, pp. 407, 447, P.L. 1902, as amended by chapter 221 p. 396, P.L. 1928 (Comp.St.Supp. 1930, §§ 99—88). The only specific dates named in the indictments were March 16, 1933, against one defendant and May 13, 1933, against the other.

It is first alleged on behalf of the prosecutor of the writ that the court had no legal right to hear the motion to quash the indictments, for the reason that a like motion had already been made before the senior judge of the same court and was undecided at the time the present motion to quash was made and granted. The argument in the briefs pro and con on this point involves many assertions not to be found in the record, and therefore improperly advanced. It does appear from the quarter sessions docket returned with the writ that on February 25, 1935, the indictments were set for trial on the following March 11th; that on the latter date, Judge Delaney sitting, the defendants withdrew their pleas of not guilty and moved to quash the indictments, and that the trial was put off for two weeks, briefs on the question to come in. Judge Delaney was the senior judge, and, when sitting with his associate, was the president judge, but there seems to be no distinction in the powers of the two judges, because both sitting together or either sitting separately "constitute and may hold * * * the Court of Quarter Sessions." Chapter 18, p. 39, § 2 Pamph. Laws 1929 (Comp. St. Supp. 1930, § 50—112(l) (2). The record shows no disposition of that motion, and it is conceded that there was none. The next entries in the docket show that on June 3d, Judge Davidson sitting, the defendants again withdrew their pleas of not guilty and moved to quash the indictments, and that on June 27th Judge Davidson, again sitting in the sessions, granted the motions. At that time the statute of limitations had run as to the dates specified in the indictments. It is asserted by the respondents without contradiction that the prosecutor of the pleas, with his witnesses in court ready to proceed, and notwithstanding the earlier pending motions, moved the trial of the indictments before Judge Davidson, and that it was in this status of the case that the motions to quash were renewed. In such a posture we see no irregularity either in the making or in the hearing of the second set of motions.

It is next submitted on behalf of the prosecution that the quashing of the two indictments under review was clearly an abuse of legal discretion and in violation of the settled principle of law applicable thereto.

Defendants, as we have said, were indicted under section 88 of the Insurance Act (2 Comp.St. 1910, p. 2867, § 88) for engaging in the insurance business in this state without a license. That section as it originally stood carried no separate procedure or penalty. It came within the purview of section 89, which provided that the penalty for each violation of the act, except the failure of a company to file an annual statement, should be $500 and costs of suit, the collection of the penalties to be by the commissioner of banking and insurance in an action as for debt, and the funds, when collected, to be paid by the commissioner to certain firemen's relief associations. But section 88 was amended, chapter 221, P.L. 1928, by the addition of the words,"Any person, firm or company violating any of the...