State v. Klantchnek, 5893
Decision Date | 03 May 1955 |
Docket Number | No. 5893,5893 |
Parties | The STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John KLANTCHNEK, Defendant-Appellant. |
Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
John J. Wilkinson, Portales, for appellant.
Richard H. Robinson, Atty. Gen., J. H. Burttram, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., Fred M. Standley, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The appellant was convicted of driving a motor vehicle upon a public highway while under the influence of intoxicating liquor and sentenced to a term of 90 days in jail, a part of which was ordered suspended on the payment of costs in the sum of $200. In addition, the sentencing judge ordered the driver's license of appellant suspended for 12 months.
The trial was upon an information filed in the district court on March 12, 1954, and the prosecution proceeded under Sec. 54, Ch. 139, Laws of 1953, Sec. 64-22-2, 1953 Comp., which reads as follows:
'The Commissioner shall revoke the license or permit to drive and any nonresident operating privilege of any person convicted under this section.
'(e) Justices of the peace shall have jurisdiction to accept a plea of guilty to a first offense under this section and to impose a fine of $100.'
Prior to the trial the appellant filed a motion to quash the information on the following grounds:
The motion was denied and following the return of the verdict of guilty, a motion for judgment non obstante veredicto was made upon substantially the same grounds and also denied.
The assignments of error here are:
'1. That the Court erred in overruling the Motion to Quash the Information and the Motion for Judgment Non Obstante Veredicto, for the reason that Chapter 64, Article 22, New Mexico Statutes, 1953 Compilation, (Chapter 139, Session Laws of 1953) is unconstitutional in that such statute denies to the citizens of the State of New Mexico the equal protection of the laws as required by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and by Article 2, Section 18 of the New Mexico Constitution.
'2. That the Court erred in overruling the Motions so made by the defendant for the reason that Chapter 64, Article 22, New Mexico Statutes, 1953 Compilation, is unconstitutional and void in that such statute is uncertain and ambiguous in its application and meaning and no conviction will lie under said statute.
As the propositions urged in assignments two and three were not raised below, they will not be considered here, although the question of the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace in felony cases will be passed upon under appellant's assignment No. one. State v. Williams, 1946, 50 N.M. 28, 168 P.2d 850; State v. Lopez, 1942, 46 N.M. 463, 131 P.2d 273; State v. Harris, 1937, 41 N.M. 426, 70 P.2d 757; State v. Parker, 1930, 34 N.M. 486, 285 P. 490. The same rule applies to constitutional questions not raised below. Taylor v. Shaw, 1944, 48 N.M. 395, 400, 151 P.2d 743; Miera v. State, 1942, 46 N.M. 369, 129 P.2d 334; State v. Chavez, 1914, 19 N.M. 325, 142 P. 922, Ann.Cas.1917B, 127.
It is strongly urged that the statute involved here violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and Art. 2, Sec. 18 of the New Mexico Constitution, in that it denies equal protection of the laws, and that a defendant hailed into the justice court is fined $100 on a plea of guilty, while if he is charged in the district court he may be punished by a sentence of one year in the penitentiary.
The statute so reads, but if we hold the offense is a felony, then that part of it which purports to give a justice of the peace jurisdiction of a felony runs afoul of Secs. 13 and 23 of Art. 6 of the New Mexico Constitution giving the district courts of New Mexico exclusive jurisdiction in felony cases. State v. McKinley, 1949, 53 N.M. 106, 112, 202 P.2d 964.
Our statute, Sec. 40-1-3, 1953 Comp., reads:
See also Sec. 42-1-37, 1953 Comp., which provides that all persons sentenced to imprisonment for more than six months shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary, and that all courts in which such judgments shall be...
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