State v. James Larkin State

• Decision Date: 17 September 1929
• Docket Number: ( No. 6286,( No. 6287)
• Citation: 107 W.Va. 580
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: State v. James LarkinState v. Harry Simmons

107 W.Va. 580

State

v.James Larkin

State

v.Harry Simmons

(Nos. 6286, 6287)

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted September 10, 1929.

Decided September 17, 1929.

1. Statutes Penal Statute Must be Strictly Construed.

It is a general rule that a penal statute will not be extended by construction, but must be limited to cases clearly within its language and spirit, (p. 582).

2. Automobiles One Operating Automobile Under Class H-3 License Cannot be Convicted of Receiving Passengers in Violation of Rights of Bus Line, Unless Passengers Were Received Along Regular Bus Route; Defendants Operating Automobile Under Class H-3 License and Receiving Passengers Within 200 Feet of Terminus of Bus Line, but Not Along Regular Route of Bus, Held Not Guilty of Unlawfully Receiving Passengers (Acts 1925, c. 17, § 82).

To convict one, operating an automobile under Class H-3 license, of receiving passengers in violation of the rights of another operating under a certificate of convenience over a regular route, it must appear that the passengers were received along (between the termini of) such route. (p. 582).

Error to Circuit Court, Raleigh County.

James Larkin and. Harry Simmons were each convicted of receiving passengers within 200 feet of building maintained as designated stop in operation of bus line over regular route, and they severally bring error.

Reversed and remanded,

Brown W. Payne, for plaintiffs in error.

Howard B. Lee, Attorney General, and W. Elliott Nefflin, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.

Litz, Judge:

The defendant in each of these cases was tried before a justice of the peace of Raleigh county on a warrant charging him, while operating an automobile for hire under a Class H-3 license, with receiving passengers within two hundred feet of a building at Lester, Raleigh county, maintained as a designated stop by D. S. Hill and J. E. Tolbert in the operation of a bus line over a regular route, in violation of section 82, chapter 17, Acts 1925, which provides: "All vehicles operating under the provisions of Class H-3, shall operate from a stand or stands and the road commission shall have power to grant a certificate to any applicant who operates from a stand or stands, and who does not propose to operate upon a regular schedule, but who is privately employed for a specific trip and who will not solicit or receive patronage along a route for which a certificate of convenience has been granted by the state road commission for the operation of vehicles over a regular route or between fixed termini. Provided, however, that vehicles operating under Class H-3 may receive passengers along routes for which a certificate of convenience has been granted, but not at or within two hundred feet of any building owned or maintained as a designated stop."

Upon appeals from judgments of conviction before the justice, the defendants were tried and convicted in the criminal court of Raleigh county. The evidence tends to prove that each of the defendants, while operating an automobile as an employee of James Nelson under Class H-3 license, received passengers at a stand, established and maintained by Nelson in...