State v. Prince

• Decision Date: 12 April 1917
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 563
• Citation: State v. Prince, 199 Ala. 444, 74 So. 939 (Ala. 1917)
• Parties: STATE ex rel. BRANDON et al. v. PRINCE et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

74 So. 939

199 Ala. 444

STATE ex rel. BRANDON et al. v. PRINCE et al.

6 Div. 563

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 12, 1917

Appeal from Circuit Court, Tuscaloosa County; Henry B. Foster Judge.

Petition by the State of Alabama, on the relation of W.W. Brandon, and others, for quo warranto to determine if A.F. Prince and others constitute the Jury Commissioners of Tuscaloosa County, and to inquire by what authority they hold said office.From a decree refusing to grant said writ, relators appeal.Reversed and rendered.

The title to the act(Local Laws 1915, No. 729, p. 470) is as follows:

"An act to establish a board of revenue of Tuscaloosa county, Alabama, to prescribe its powers and duties, to fix the compensation of its members, to provide for the election of its members and fix their terms of office, to provide for a clerk and engineer, and to abolish the court of county commissioners, the board of public works, and the jury commission of said county."

The following notice was published once a week for four consecutive weeks in the West Alabama Breeze, a newspaper published in Tuscaloosa county, Ala., said publications being on the 6th day of January, 1915, viz.:

"Notice is hereby given that at the 1915 session of the Legislature of Alabama there will be introduced a bill seeking the enactment of a law, providing for the establishment of a board of revenue for Tuscaloosa county Ala., and abolishing the court of county commissioners, board of public works, and jury commission of said county, giving to such board of revenue any and all powers, rights responsibilities, and duties as are now possessed by the court of county commissioners, board of public works, and jury commission, providing for a clerk of said board, fixing his compensation, and prescribing his duties, fixing the compensation of the members of said board of revenue authorizing said board of revenue to employ an engineer when in its opinion necessary, providing when said board shall hold its sessions, providing that no member of said board shall directly or indirectly be interested in any contract for the repair or improvement of roads or bridges in Tuscaloosa county, and providing for the punishment of any violation thereof, providing for the selection of the members of said board of revenue, and providing for the time that said bill, if enacted shall become a law."Volume 2, p. 3836, House Journal 1915.

Foster, Verner & Rice and J.P. Vande Voort, all of Tuscaloosa, for appellants.

Clarkson & Morrisette, of Tuscaloosa, for appellees.

MAYFIELD J.

This is a statutory quo warranto proceeding to oust the jury commissioners of Tuscaloosa county.The decision of this case involves the constitutionality of a local act of the Legislature, which, if valid, virtually abolishes the office of jury commissioners for Tuscaloosa county, and imposes the duties and confers the powers thereof upon a board of revenue created or provided by the same act.The trial court held the act invalid.The reporter will set out the title of the act, and the notice of the proposed passage of the bill.

It is first insisted that so much of the act as conferred the powers and imposed the duties of the jury commission upon the board of revenue, violated section 105 of the present state Constitution(that of 1901).That section reads as follows:

"No special, private, or local law, except a law fixing the time of holding courts, shall be enacted in any case which is provided for by a general law, or when the relief sought can be given by any court of this state; and the courts, and not the Legislature, shall judge as to whether the matter of said law is provided for by a general law, and as to whether the relief sought can be given by any court; nor shall the Legislature indirectly enact any such special, private, or local law by the partial repeal of a general law."

The insistence is that the only effect of sections 9,10, and19, which relate to the matter of selecting and drawing the jurors and juries for Tuscaloosa county, is now, and was before the local act was passed, provided for by a general law, and that the local act therefore violates section 105 of the Constitution.

We cannot agree to or concur in this insistence.There is not now, and was not, at the date of the passage of the local statute, any law which authorized boards of revenue or courts of county commissioners to draw or select the juries and jurors for Tuscaloosa county.The fact that there was a general law by which the juries for that county could be drawn by other boards or officers did not prevent the Legislature from providing, by a local enactment, that the juries shall be drawn by other boards, officers, or persons than those provided for in the general law.There is no constitutional provision requiring that the laws as to drawing and selecting juries shall be uniform in all the counties or in all of the courts of the state.The purpose and effect of the sections of the local act in question was to confer the powers and impose the duties incident to the selecting and drawing of juries for that county upon a board, or officers, or persons, who could not theretofore exercise such powers, after withdrawing these powers and duties from another board, officers, or persons who had theretofore exercised the same.Herein we see that the object and effect of the local law was to work a radical change in the law applicable to Tuscaloosa county as to selecting and drawing the jurors and juries for that county.

If we should hold that, merely because there...