State v. Letellier

• Decision Date: 04 April 1921
• Docket Number: 24438
• Citation: 90 So. 218,149 La. 847
• Parties: STATE v. LETELLIER et al. In re BUSINESS MEN'S RACING ASS'N, Inc., et al
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

90 So. 218

149 La. 847

STATE v. LETELLIER et al.

In re BUSINESS MEN'S RACING ASS'N, Inc., et al

No. 24438

Supreme Court of Louisiana

April 4, 1921

On Rehearing, December 10, 1921

Application dismissed.

Walter L. Gleason, of New Orleans, for relators.

A. V Coco, Atty. Gen., and Robert H. Marr, Dist. Atty., of New Orleans (T. Semmes Walmsley, of New Orleans, of counsel), for the State.

PROVOSTY J. MONROE, C. J. and O'NIELL, J., dissenting.

OPINION

PROVOSTY, J.

The relators are the Business Men's Racing Association and its officers. They obtained an injunction in the civil district court against the district attorney and the superintendent of police to prevent them from attempting to charge them with a violation of Act 57 of 1908, prohibiting gambling on horse races by the operation of betting books, French mutual pooling devices, auction pools, or any other device, and providing penalties for violation of the act. Disregarding this injunction, the district attorney filed information against the said officers in the criminal district court, division B, presided over by the respondent judge, and the criminal prosecutions were being proceeded with when the said relators filed in this court the present application for a writ of prohibition to be addressed to the respondent judge prohibiting him from proceeding further with said prosecutions.

The ground of the injunction was that such criminal prosecutions would injure the property rights of the petitioners, and would be unreasonable and arbitrary, as the question of whether the mode of betting on the race track of the relators was a violation of said statute had already been considered by the Supreme Court and decided in the negative.

The ground of the present application to this court is that the continuation of said criminal prosecution will be ruinous to the said Business Men's Racing Association, and that mere proceedings for contempt against the district attorney for violation of the said injunction would not afford adequate remedy, as in the meantime the irreparable injury to the relators would be done.

From the return of the learned respondent judge we transcribe as follows:

"Article 845 of the Code of Practice provides that a writ of prohibition 'only issues to courts of inferior judges which exceed the bounds of their jurisdiction.'

"Article 139 of the Constitution provides that: 'The criminal district court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction for the trial and punishment of all offenses when the penalty of death, imprisonment at hard labor or imprisonment without hard labor for any time exceeding six months, or a fine exceeding $ 300.00 may be imposed.'

"Relators stand charged in respondent's court with an offense of which the criminal district court has exclusive trial jurisdiction. It is therefore plain that, so far as the trial of relators is concerned, your respondent had jurisdiction.

"Therefore if your respondent has exceeded the bounds of his jurisdiction, it must arise from some other cause than the nature of the offense charged, or, in other words, that though under the Constitution respondent had jurisdiction of the case, something has happened which has removed the case from your respondent's jurisdiction. The question then for your honors to decide is in what way has your respondent exceeded the bounds of a jurisdiction which confessedly is lodged in him? What has happened to take away from your respondent the trial of the case, the right to try which is vested in him by the Constitution?

"Nothing is better settled than that the civil district court and the criminal district court is each a separate and independent tribunal, and each utterly without power to control in any way the action of the other; that when, therefore, one of these tribunals exceeds the bounds of its jurisdiction, the remedy lies only in the Supreme Court. It is respectfully submitted that relators have by their own allegations put themselves out of court. They confess that the civil district court is without authority to issue an injunction against your respondent, but they say that an issuance of an injunction by the civil district court against the district attorney is, in effect, an injunction against your respondent; in other words, they seek to make your honors believe that they believe that what cannot be directly accomplished can be accomplished by indirection. What relators seek to do is really to contrive a device for obtaining that which the law says they shall not, under any circumstances, obtain.

"Nothing is better settled than that no man is bound by proceedings to which he is a stranger. Your respondent was not made a party to the injunction sued out against the district attorney and the chief of police; hence he could under no circumstances be bound by the proceedings in that case.

"When it was moved before respondent that relators' trial should be continued until such time as the injunctions issued by the civil district court against the district attorney and the chief of police should have been disposed of, it was not urged that the jurisdiction of the criminal district court had been ousted by the issuance of an injunction; but, had such proposition been urged, respondent would have forthwith overruled it as being absolutely contrary to the Constitution of this state and to the settled jurisprudence of Louisiana.

"Your respondent is in no wise interested in any controversy that may be pending between relators and the district attorney, nor is it any concern of your respondent whether the district attorney has or has not been guilty of contempt of the injunction issued against him by the civil district court, but your respondent is vitally interested in preserving the dignity and usefulness of the court over which he presides, and he feels that to hold that an injunction against the district attorney ties up prosecutions in the criminal district court makes his court sink into not only an inferior tribunal, but into a tribunal in which the exercise of a jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution is taken away from him and lodged in a court having no jurisdiction in criminal matters.

"There are other rights to be protected than merely the alleged rights of property. The granting of the relief prayed for by relators would completely paralyze the administration of criminal justice, and could prevent the trial of the murderer, the forger, the embezzler, or the ravisher. If, upon the bare allegation that his property rights are involved in a prosecution which the district attorney contemplates bringing against him, such person has the right by means of an injunction issued by a civil court to prevent the judge of a criminal court from taking cognizance of any prosecution that might be instituted against this accused, then the administration of criminal justice becomes a lamentable farce. Such things cannot be. This matter was decided adversely to relators' pretensions in the matter of State ex rel. Walker v. Judge, 39 La.Ann. 132, 1 So. 437.

"Relators invoke the exercise of our supervisory jurisdiction through the writs of prohibition and certiorari, for the purpose of restraining the respondent judge and the district attorney of the parish of Orleans from proceeding further in certain criminal prosecutions instituted and pending in the criminal district court of said parish, for alleged violations of Act No. 18 of 1886, commonly known as the 'Sunday Law,' and of annulling the proceedings already had in said causes.

"The grounds assigned for the relief sought are twofold, viz.:

"(1) Because said criminal prosecutions were instituted in, and entertained by, the said criminal district court, in violation of an injunction previously issued by division A of the civil district court for the parish of Orleans, restraining the mayor of New Orleans, the chief of police, the several recorders of the city, the district attorney, the assistant district attorney, and the criminal sheriff for the parish of Orleans from arresting or instituting proceedings against relators for any violation of the provisions of said Act No. 18 until the further order of said civil district court.

"(2) Because said Act No. 18 of 1886, having been passed by the General Assembly in violation of the Constitutions of the United States and of the state of Louisiana, is not a valid law, and the alleged violation thereof by relators is not a crime, and cannot form the basis of a criminal prosecution against them. * * *

"What effect had the injunction issued by division A of the civil district court upon the jurisdictional power and authority of the criminal district court?

"We are bound to hold that it had none. The criminal district court derives its jurisdiction exclusively from the Constitution, and is in no manner subordinate to, or subject to the control of, the civil district court, which is vested with no power of any kind to curtail, extend, suspend, or regulate its actions in any case.

"It is proper to say that the judge of the civil district court, who issued this injunction, has not assumed, and never would have thought of assuming, to exercise any such power.

"His injunction is not addressed to the criminal district court or to the judges thereof. It is addressed to certain other public officers, who are vested with functions, not judicial, in the execution of the criminal laws of the state.

"The judge of the civil district court is not a party to this application, and we are not called upon to adjudge the validity or regularity of his proceedings.

"Conceding their validity, argumenti gratia, they do not concern, and are entirely inoperative upon, the respondent judge; and, so far as the district attorney is concerned, if he has violated...