State v. Harris

• Decision Date: 02 June 1922
• Docket Number: 470.
• Citation: 112 S.E. 425,183 N.C. 633
• Parties: STATE v. HARRIS IN RE HARRIS.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

112 S.E. 425

183 N.C. 633

STATE v. HARRIS

IN RE HARRIS.

No. 470.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

June 2, 1922

Certiorari to Superior Court, Iredell County; Long, Judge.

Habeas corpus by Sherrill Harris to procure his release from confinement under sentence by a recorder's court. The application was denied, and petitioner brings certiorari. Affirmed, and petitioner remanded to custody.

Cause presented on writ of certiorari duly issued from this court to review a decision of Hon. B. F. Long, Judge, in habeas corpus proceedings instituted and heard before him on petition of Sherrill Harris. From perusal of the record, it appears that under chapter 27, subchapter 4, C. S. as amended by chapter 110, Laws 1921, a recorder's court was established for Iredell county. Acting under provisions of said law and the jurisdiction thereby conferred, defendant was, on February 27, 1922, convicted of the criminal offense of selling spirituous liquor and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of six months and assigned to work on the roads etc., during said term without felon stripes; that being held under said sentence the defendant filed his petition for habeas corpus before his honor, B. F. Long, resident judge Fifteenth district, on the alleged ground that the judgment against him was illegal and void, chiefly for the reason that the act providing for the establishment of said court and conferring jurisdiction thereon was in violation of article 2, § 29, of the Constitution, prohibiting local, private, or special legislation in various matters therein specified, and including acts relating to the establishment of courts inferior to the Supreme Court. On the hearing, his honor being of opinion that the act was in all respects constitutional and valid, entered judgment in denial of plaintiff's application, and he was remanded to custody and is now held under said sentence of the recorder's court. Thereupon said petitioner applied for and obtained this writ of certiorari on petition and which was duly filed and served for the purpose, as stated, of reviewing the adverse judgment in habeas corpus proceedings and the validity of the sentence under which the petitioner is being detained.

Zeb V Turlington, of Mooresville, for petitioner.

W. D Turner, Long & Jurney, Lewis & Lewis, and Grier & Grier, all of Statesville, for respondent.

HOKE J.

In the fall of 1916, there were several amendments made to our Constitution, becoming effective January 10, 1917. Reade v. Durham, 173 N.C. 668, 92 S.E. 712; Mills v Commissioners, 175 N.C. 215, 95 S.E. 481. Among these amendments appearing chiefly in article 2, § 29, there is an inhibition against passing "local, private, or special act or resolution relating to the establishment of courts inferior to the superior court, * * * authorizing the laying out, opening, altering, * * * or discontinuing of highways, streets, or alleys; relating to ferries or bridges," etc. After the adoption of these amendments, the General Assembly in 1919, chapter 277, the same being entitled an act to establish a uniform system of recorders' courts for municipalities and counties in the state, provided for the establishment of such courts, and in section 64 excepted from the effect and operation of the law the Tenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth judicial districts and the Eleventh district, except Caswell county and ten additional counties by name, Anson, Chatham, and eight others, the exemption now appearing in C. S. § 1608. Later, in chapter 110, Laws 1921, some amendments were made to the general statute, and Iredell and Granville and Cherokee counties were withdrawn from the excepted cases and brought within the provisions of the general law; the result being that the general statute applied to about 56 counties in the state, and 44 were excepted from its provisions, and it is contended by the petitioner that the statute under which the court has been established is a "local and special law" within the meaning of the constitutional inhibition.

In Mills v. Commissioners, 175 N.C. 215, 95 S.E. 481, a statute authorizing the commissioners of Iredell and Catawba counties to provide for building bridges over the Catawba river, which had been washed away by a recent flood, was challenged as being in violation of the constitutional provision, and speaking to the meaning of the word "local" as contained in the amendments, the court, among other things, said:

"It is said in some of the decisions on the subject that the significance of the term 'local' in constitutional provisions of this character is comparatively of recent use and importance and has received no fixed or generally recognized meaning. Like other legislation or written instruments sufficiently ambiguous to permit of construction, it must be defined by reference to the context, the purpose appearing in the terms of the law and the attendant circumstances relevant to its true interpretation. In Lewis' Sutherland, Statutory Construction, it is said (2d Edition, § 199, p. 358): 'That special laws are those made for individual cases. * * * Local laws are special as to place'; and further (at section 200): 'It seems impossible to fix any definite rule by which to solve the question whether a law is local or general, and it has been found expedient to leave the matter, to a considerable extent, open, to be determined upon the special circumstances of each case."

A position that is in accord with the comments as to the meaning of the word "local" appearing in Gray v. Taylor et al., 227 U.S. 51, 33 S.Ct. 199, 57 L.Ed. 413. And in further reference to the amendments it was said:

"It is well understood that our General Assembly, at session after session, was called on by direct legislation to authorize a particular highway or street or to establish a bridge or ferry at some specified place. Such questions being not infrequently at the instance of rival parties or opposing interests, were urged and debated with great earnestness by their respective advocates and renewed and protracted to such an extent that they were of serious detriment to the public interests and, at times, prevented full and proper consideration of vital public measures. The Legislature in these cases was in fact called on to usurp, or rather to exercise, functions which were more usually and properly performed by the local authorities, and it was in reference to local and special and private measures of this character that these amendments were adopted, and, as stated in Brown's Case, supra, it was never intended to prohibit legislation authorizing the raising of proper funds by the sale of bonds or by taxation for measures required for the public good, though such funds should be for improvements in some fixed place or in restricted territory determined upon by local authorities in pursuance of general laws

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