State v. Sansome

• Decision Date: 05 November 1923
• Docket Number: 23625
• Citation: 133 Miss. 428,97 So. 753
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. SANSOME

97 So. 753

133 Miss. 428

STATE v. SANSOME

No. 23625

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 5, 1923

(In Banc.) January 1, 1920

1. INDICTMENT AND INFORMATION. Law making desertion of wife or children a felony held void as not requiring prosecution by indictment.

Chapter 212, Laws 1920, is void as being in conflict with section 27 of the state Constitution 1890, requiring indictment in prosecution of felonies, because the act authorizes prosecution for felony merely upon complaint under oath by any person.

2. CRIMINAL LAW. Maximum penalty that may by imposed controlling as to whether offense misdemeanor or felony; power to imprison in penitentiary determines offense a felony.

In testing an offense as to whether it is a felony or misdemeanor, the maximum power given to imprison in the penitentiary is controlling, and determines it to be a felony.

3 STATUTES. Section of law defining offense of wife desertion and prescribing punishment cannot be separated from other infirm sections.

Section 1 of the act cannot be separated from the other infirm sections, and upheld as valid, because the whole chapter constitutes one single scheme, and section 1 would not have been enacted without the other sections.

HON. E L. BRIEN, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Warren county, HON. E. L. BRIEN, Judge.

Leon Sansome was charged with desertion or failure to support his wife and children in destitute or necessitous circumstances and from an order sustaining a demurrer to the indictment the state appeals. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

S. C. Broom, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

The first ground of demurrer is the simple assertion that the indictment charges no offense known to the law. That of course depends upon whether or not the law is upheld. If the entire chapter is declared unconstitutional then I presume the assertion is correct.

We all agree that under some circumstances it may become the duty of the courts to declare that what the legislature has assumed to enact is void either from a want of constitutional power to enact it, or because the constitutional form or conditions have not been observed, but is also understood that the power to declare a legislative enactment void is one which the judge, conscious of the fallibility of human judgment, will shrink from exercising in any case where he may conscientiously, and with due regard to duty and official oath, decline the responsibility. See C's Con. Lim. (7 Ed.), page 227.

It is likewise well settled that a statute may be declared unconstitutional in part without rendering the whole enactment void: "Where therefore a part of a statute is unconstitutional, that fact does not authorize the court to declare the remainder void also, unless all the provisions are connected in subject-matter," etc. 7 C. Con. Lim., pages 246 and 247, and authorities cited thereunder.

It is also well settled that a reasonable doubt must be solved in favor of the legislative action. See page 253, 7 C. Con. Lim. And we must bear in mind the consequences necessarily attendant upon a statute being declared unconstitutional. 7 C's Con. Lim. pages 259 and 260. With these fundamental rules in mind to guide us, we will proceed to a construction of the statute and of the various sections of the constitution involved.

The third ground of the demurrer charges that the said act is in violation of section 27 of the Constitution of the state of Mississippi. Section 27 of the Constitution of Mississippi provides against procedure by information, etc. And, whereas, section 2 of this Act, being chapter 212 of the Laws of 1920, provides that proceedings may be instituted upon complaint under oath or affirmation by the wife or child or other person, etc. Therefore it is apparent that this objection to the law is based on the theory that it is an attempt to provide for a different method of criminal procedure than by indictment or affidavit, as required by general statute, and by the constitution.

An affidavit is but a complaint under oath. It will be observed that it does not take away the right of the grand jury to indict, and I think counsel will agree that if this section was not in the act we would be authorized to proceed under the general laws governing criminal procedure, namely, affidavit and indictment.

The section does not limit and prescribe to the exclusion of all others an absolute method of procedure. The method prescribed is constitutional and necessary, otherwise in some instances the defendant would flee the country and when the grand jury convened to indict him, he would be beyond the arm of the law, and an indictment would be in vain.

This appellee cannot complain, and cannot invoke or plead the constitution in this particular, because he has not been proceeded against by complaint under oath, but on the contrary he has been indicted for a criminal offense.

He has not been injured by that part of the act alleged to be unconstitutional, nor would he be benefited by having it declared unconstitutional, because if it were stricken from the book the context of the whole law would not be disturbed. "It is a firmly established principle of law that the constitutionality of the statute could not be attacked by one whose rights are not affected by the operation of the statute." 12 Corpus Juris, 760, and authorities cited thereunder.

"One claiming that a state statute violated the Fourteenth Amendment is limited solely to the inquiry whether in the case which he himself presents the statute has operated to infringe on his constitutional rights, and the court will not consider whether in a different case the statute might so operate." Del Castello v. McConnico, 168 U.S. 674.

In the present case no temporary order pendente lite has been entered against the appellee, and until such action is taken to the injury of the appellee he cannot raise the constitutional question of trial without a jury.

It has been said that law is the perfection of reason. If that be true, then why condemn a statute as being unconstitutional because it attempts to be reasonable and just in the enforcement of a moral and legal obligation?

The tenth ground of demurrer charges that the title to the act is insufficient because it fails to set out that the act itself repeals sub-section (k), section 5055 of the Code of 1906, and because the act attempts to amend section 1916 of the Code of 1906 without same being mentioned and set out in the title thereof, all in violation of section 61 of the Constitution.

It is held in the case of Hunt v. Wright, 70 Miss. 298, 11 So. 608, that the section has no application to an act adopting and putting in force a code of laws, and that is exactly what is done in this act.

In conclusion we desire to submit that this is an important bit of progressive legislation enacted as a result of a need for the correction of a great evil that is everywhere existing, and in order to cope with the situation, uniform laws are necessary throughout the states. We submit that as a whole the law is not unconstitutional as enacted, and we submit further, that its constitutionality has not been properly raised, and cannot be invoked by the defendant herein for the reasons assigned in this brief, based upon the authorities herein cited.

Henry, Canizaro & Henry, for appellee.

The first ground says that the indictment charges no offense known to the law, by that we mean constitutional law, or common law. This ground attacks the entire constitutionality of the statute.

It will be noted at the outset that the demurrer attacks each and every section of the Acts of 1920. And when we say that it is in derogation of the common law we mean that the several provisions in the act and indeed the entire scheme intended by the legislature is in derogation of the common law, both as to manner of procedure authorized therein, as well as the terms of the act, and the mode of executing or enforcing the law. In construing a criminal or penal statute, which is in derogation of the common law, it is not admissible to give to the words a meaning they do not contain in order to accomplish an object (it may be supposed that), the lawmaker had in view. West v. State, 70 Miss. 597. Statutes in derogation of the common law will be strictly construed. Shattuck v. Miller, 50 Miss. 386; McInnis v. State, 52 So. 634.

The function of the supreme court is to pronounce the law on penal statutes and not enlarge their scope to meet what we may think to be the gravity of the particular offense. Hatton v. State, 92 Miss. 651.

The first section of the Act of 1920 attempts to define the crime which the law intended to condemn, but it is so connected with the other sections 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 that it is manifest but one scheme was intended by the legislature. The legislature would not have enacted the first section without the remaining sections. Moreover, these sections, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, were intended to cover the course of procedure in all the cases coming within the purview of the act.

Whether or not a particular statute is constitutional is a matter of law and must be tested not by what has been done under it, but what the law authorizes to be done under its provisions. 12 C. J., page 786, section 219, and authorities therein cited.

To present the proposition more concisely, if we understand the contention of the state correctly, it is claimed that the defendant, appellee here, was not injured by being indicted by the grand jury under the authority of an unconstitutional statute; that he is not hurt by being arrested and placed in jail and held until he was able to make bond or have the statute declared unconstitutional, and his release from further prosecution.

The case of United States v. Moreland,...