State v. Page

• Decision Date: 18 February 1882
• Citation: 11 N.W. 495,12 Neb. 386
• Parties: THE STATE OF NEBRASKA, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. JACK PAGE, DEFENDANT IN ERROR
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

11 N.W. 495

12 Neb. 386

THE STATE OF NEBRASKA, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. JACK PAGE, DEFENDANT IN ERROR

Supreme Court of Nebraska

February 18, 1882

THIS was a bill of exceptions, filed by the district attorney, to take the opinion of this court upon points which arose in the trial below, before GASLIN, J., and ruled in favor of Page.

AFFIRMED.

V Bierbower, District Attorney, and C. J. Dilworth, Attorney General, for the state.

William Neville and George W. Heist, for defendant in error.

OPINION

LAKE CH. J.

The questions to be considered are presented by a bill of exceptions taken by the district attorney of the fifth judicial district under section 483, and brought here for review as provided by section 515 of the criminal code. It appears that Page is under an indictment found by the grand jury of Cheyenne county for the crime of murder, alleged to have been committed in the unorganized county of Sioux. By section 146, Sioux county is attached to Cheyenne "for election, judicial, and revenue purposes. Comp Stat., 193.

To this indictment Page interposed a plea in abatement, in which among other things, he alleges:

First. That the act attaching Sioux to Cheyenne county is "unconstitutional and void," and that, consequently, the former still remains "in the sixth judicial district," where it was placed by sec. 10, Art. VI., of the constitution.

Second. That the list of persons from which the grand jurors that found the indictment were drawn, was composed wholly of residents of Cheyenne county, although, at the time of the selection, there were in Sioux county at least two hundred persons possessing the qualifications of jurors, and who still resided there when the indictment was found. That of the whole number of persons in both counties qualified to act as jurors, one-third were residents of Sioux, and yet not a single one was called therefrom. A general demurrer to this plea was overruled, an exception to the ruling taken, and this is the basis of the alleged errors.

Is this plea a sufficient answer to the indictment? As to so much of it as challenges the jurisdiction of the court by alleging the unconstitutionality of the act by which the unorganized county of Sioux was detached from the sixth judicial district and attached to the fifth by joining it to the organized county of Cheyenne, we answer in the negative. It is contended in support of this part of the plea that the act embraces more than one subject, which the constitution forbids. The title to the act is: "Counties and County Officers." There is nothing in the act foreign to this title. Where a law has but one general object, as is clearly the case with this one, and the title fairly expresses it, that will satisfy the constitutional requirement here invoked. White v. The City of Lincoln, 5 Neb. 505.

It is further claimed that, inasmuch as the effect of attaching Sioux county to Cheyenne is to change the former boundaries of the fifth and sixth districts, the act is also open to the constitutional objection of containing a subject not "expressed in its title." We cannot so hold. This is a complete act of itself. The title is couched in general terms, and is exceedingly...