State v. Siegel

• Decision Date: 25 May 1915
• Docket Number: No. 18700.,18700.
• Citation: 177 S.W. 353,265 Mo. 239
• Parties: STATE v. SIEGEL.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

177 S.W. 353

265 Mo. 239

STATE v. SIEGEL.

No. 18700.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

May 25, 1915.

Appeal from Criminal Court, Jackson County; Ralph S. Latshaw, Judge.

Joseph Siegel, alias James Foley, was convicted of crime, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Numa F. Heitman, of Kansas City (henry J. Aaron, of Chicago, Ill., of counsel), for appellant. John T. Barker, Atty. Gen. (James P. Gilmore, of Tulsa, Okl., of counsel), for the State.

WALKER, J.

Appellant was charged in an information filed by the prosecuting attorney of Jackson county with voting more than once at an election held in Kansas City to determine the question of a proposed extension of a railway franchise. Upon being arraigned he entered a plea of guilty, and was sentenced to two years imprisonment in the penitentiary. Challenging the sufficiency of the information, he appeals to this court.

The information charges substantially as follows:

"That on the 7th day of July, 1914, a special municipal election was held, under the Constitution and laws of the state of Missouri, in and for the county of Jackson and city of Kansas City, in the several voting precincts of said city, for the purpose of voting upon a street railway franchise, and that the said Joseph Siegel, alias James Foley, being an elector qualified to vote at said election in the second precinct of the First ward voting precinct, did then and there appear at said voting precinct and vote and give his ticket to the judges of said election and cause his name and vote to be entered by the clerks of said election on the poll books, and his ticket to be properly numbered and deposited in the ballot box, and that the said Joseph Siegel, alias James Foley, afterwards, to wit, on the said day and at the same election, did appear at the place of holding said election in the fourth precinct First ward voting precinct in said city, and did then and there unlawfully and intentionally, and by and under the name of James Foley, vote and give in his vote and ballot to the judges of said election at said last-mentioned voting precinct, and cause his name to be recorded as James Foley, and his vote to be entered on the poll books by the clerks of said election, and his said ticket to be properly numbered and deposited in the ballot box, and so the said Joseph Siegel, alias James Foley, did unlawfully, willfully, knowingly, and fraudulently at the election aforesaid on the day aforesaid vote more than once—against the peace and dignity of the state."

The right of the appellant to ask this court to review the record to determine the sufficiency of the information under which lie entered a plea of guilty is too well established to admit of controversy, and we therefore leave the matter with the citation of the authorities sustaining this right. State v. Henschel, 250 Mo. loc. cit. 269, 157 S. W. 311; State v. Kelley, 206 Mo. loc. cit. 693, 105 S. W,. 606, 12 Ann. Cas. 681; State v. Rosenblatt, 185 Mo. loc. cit. 119, 83 S. W. 075.

Preliminary to an analysis of the information to determine its sufficiency, it is necessary to ascertain upon what statute it was drawn. The offense with which the appellant was charged is defined in sections 4427 and 6255, R. S. 1909. So far as the mere words defining the offense in each of these sections are concerned, the information might well be held to have been drawn under either; but section 4427 is general in its nature, and operates alike in every portion of the state; while section 6255, although general in form, is limited in its operation to cities of 100,000 and over. Under this state of facts we are confronted with the question as to whether the enactment of that portion of section 6255 defining the same offense as that denounced in section 4427 was authorized. The state Constitution (section 53, art. 4, Coast. Mo.) furnishes an explicit answer to this inquiry in providing that, where a general law can be made applicable, no local or special law can be enacted, and in further declaring that whether a general law can be made applicable or not is a judicial question, and, as such, may be judicially determined, regardless of a legislative declaration on the subject.

We are not left, however, to abstract reasoning as to the application of this constitutional provision to the case here, as this court, in State v. Anslinger, 171 Mo. 600, 71 S. W. 1041, cited with approval in State ex rel. v....