State v. Stewart
Decision Date | 03 March 1927 |
Docket Number | 104. |
Citation | 137 A. 39,152 Md. 419 |
Parties | STATE v. STEWART. |
Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Criminal Court of Baltimore City; Eugene O'Dunne Judge.
"To be officially reported."
David Stewart was indicted for violation of parking regulations made by the police commissioner of Baltimore City. From a judgment sustaining a demurrer to the indictment, the State appeals. Affirmed.
Argued before BOND, C.J., and PATTISON, URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT DIGGES, PARKE, and SLOAN, JJ.
Willis R. Jones, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Eugene A. Edgett, of Baltimore (Thomas H. Robinson, Atty. Gen., and Herbert R O'Conor, State's Atty., of Baltimore, on the brief) for the State.
Arthur W. Machen, Jr., of Baltimore (J. Britain Winter, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.
On July 16, 1926, the appellee was indicted by the grand jury of Baltimore city for violation of the parking regulations made and promulgated by the police commissioner of Baltimore city, with the approval of the mayor; said regulations having been made under the authority of chapter 436 of the Acts of 1924 of the General Assembly of Maryland. A demurrer was interposed to the indictment and sustained by the lower court. From this action the appeal is taken.
The indictment alleges that Charles D. Gaither, being then the police commissioner of Baltimore city, did, in pursuance of the power conferred upon him by law, and particularly by chapter 436 of the Acts of 1924, authorizing, empowering, and directing the said police commissioner to make rules and regulations for the control and conduct of all vehicles and vehicular traffic on the streets, avenues, alleys, and highways within the city of Baltimore, make certain rules and regulations; one of which being known as section 8 of article 1, and providing:
By the demurrer to the indictment the constitutionality of chapter 436 of the Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland of 1924 was attacked, and three reasons were assigned for the unconstitutionality of this act: First, that it is in conflict with article 11A of the Constitution of Maryland; second, because chapter 436 of the Acts of 1924 is an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the police commissioner and mayor; and, third, because the said act is in conflict with the Constitution of this state, and with that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws, in that said act confers arbitrary and unlimited powers on the police commissioner with the approval of the mayor, and permits said police commissioner, with the approval of the mayor, to prohibit the parking of automobiles arbitrarily and upon its mere whim and without fixing any standards by which such action is to be guided.
The trial court sustained the demurrer upon the first ground, to wit, that the Act of 1924, c. 436, is in conflict with article 11A of the Constitution of Maryland. Having reached a conclusion in harmony with that decision, which necessitates the striking down as unconstitutional of the act of the Legislature in question, it is unnecessary to pass upon the other grounds urged by the appellee for its invalidity.
Article 11A of the Constitution of Maryland, known as the Home Rule Amendment, was adopted by a vote of the people of the state in November, 1915, pursuant to the provisions of chapter 416 of the Acts of the General Assembly of 1914. The wisdom of incorporating in the organic law of the state such provisions as are contained in this article had been urged for a number of years prior to its adoption; the reasons assigned by its proponents being that a larger measure of home rule be secured to the people of the respective political subdivisions of the state in matters of purely local concern, in order that there should be the fullest measure of local self-government, and that these local questions should thus be withdrawn from consideration by the General Assembly, leaving that body more time to consider and pass upon general legislation and to prevent the passage of such legislation from being influenced by what is popularly known as "log-rolling"; that is, by influencing the attitude and vote of members of the General Assembly upon proposed general laws by threatening the defeat or promising the support of local legislation in which a particular member might be peculiarly interested. The portions of this amendment affecting this controversy are found in sections 2 and 4 of article 11A, which are:
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