State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 13 March 1896
• Citation: 42 A. 898,68 N.H. 449
• Parties: STATE v. WILLIAMS.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

42 A. 898

68 N.H. 449

STATE

v. WILLIAMS.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Coos.

March 13, 1896.

Appeal from police court of Northumberland.

P. J. Williams was convicted of keeping intoxicating liquors for sale, and he appeals. Motion to dismiss denied.

The defendant was convicted in the police court upon his plea of not guilty to a complaint charging him with keeping for sale lager beer and fermented cider, and sentenced to pay a fine of $10 and costs. Prom this conviction and sentence the defendant appealed, and, having entered his appeal in the supreme court, moved to dismiss the same; claiming that the judgment appealed from was unauthorized and void, and that police courts have not jurisdiction to hear and determine, upon a plea of not guilty, any offense arising under chapter 112, Pub. St., "Of the Sale of Spirituous and Intoxicating Liquor."

Drew, Jordan & Buckley and Robert N. Chamberlin, for appellant.

Herbert I. Goss, James W. Remick, and Daniel C. Remich, for the State.

George B. Cox, in behalf of the Law and Order League of New Hampshire, filed a brief.

PARSONS, J. Whether section 28, c. 112, Pub. St., is modified by chapter 117, Laws 1895, and whether that act is void because of constitutional limitations, are questions which it is not necessary to consider in the present case. It is conceded that the legislature had constitutional power to confer the jurisdiction exercised in the present case, and that by the general provisions of Pub. St. c. 248, §§ 3, 7, such jurisdiction is conferred upon police courts, unless the general authority there given over "any prosecution or action of a criminal nature" does not extend to cases under chapter 112, because of the limitations imposed by section 28 of that chapter. The claim is that by this section justices and police courts have jurisdiction merely to bind over to the supreme court persons charged with any offense mentioned in the chapter, even if the offense charged would otherwise be within their general authority to hear and determine. The section is as follows: "Sec. 28. If upon proceedings had before a justice or police court for any offense mentioned in this chapter, the accused shall plead not guilty, and the justice or court, on hearing the evidence, is of opinion that he is guilty of the offense charged, the justice or court shall order the offender to recognize, with two or more sufficient sureties, in a sum not less than two hundred nor more than four hundred dollars, to appear * * * and in the meantime to be of good behavior, and not to violate any provision of this chapter." Besides numerous offenses not within the jurisdiction of justices or police courts, as defined in the Public Statutes, to hear and determine, the chapter mentions offenses, in sections 14 and 17, the only penalty for which is a fine of $10. Does section 28 apply only to cases where a justice or police court has not otherwise jurisdiction to hear and determine, or is the general jurisdiction conferred in chapter 248, supra, conferred with the proviso, "except offenses mentioned in chapter 112"? What was the intent of the legislature in the enactment in 1891, in the general body of statute law under the title of the "Public Statutes," of the two sections, which, literally construed, appear to be in conflict? That intention is to be ascertained by competent evidence, and not necessarily by the application of arbitrary rules. Opinion of the Justices, 66 N. H. 650, 651, 661, 670, 33 Atl. 1076. Either the general provisions of chapter 248 must be read with the proviso, "except the offenses mentioned in chapter 112," or the authority to bind over, in section 28, c. 112, must have been intended to be exercised only in cases where the justice or police court had not authority to hear and determine. By the literal conflict, we are forced to the adoption of one construction or the other. Our attention has been called to State v. Perkins, 63 N. H. 89, and State v. Thornton, 63 N. H. 114, 115, as construing similar language in Gen. Laws, c. 109, § 22, to mean that justices and police courts have not authority to hear and determine such offenses. Neither these cases, nor the general rule that the legislature, in reenacting a statute in the same language, is presumed to have adopted the meaning already given it by the courts (Bish. Writ. Law, § 97), are necessarily decisive of the present case.

The question remains, what was the intent of the legislature in 1891? "Ordinarily, if there are a general statute and one local or special, on the same subject, in conflicting terms, neither abrogates the other, but both stand together. * * * But where, from anything cognizable by the judges, they are satisfied the general law was meant to supersede the local or special, they will give it such effect." Bish. Writ. Law, § 112b. The sections under discussion are parts of one act, though found in different chapters, and the whole body of the act is competent for consideration upon the question of legislative intent. Hitchins v. Pettingill, 58 N. H. 386, 390. Assuming that the legislative intent in 1878 was as found in the cases cited (State v. Perkins; State v. Thornton, supra),—a point upon which no opinion is now expressed,—such changes were introduced in 1891 as compel a finding of a contrary intent in the Public Statutes; for, though the words of section 28 do not differ materially from the language used in the corresponding section of the General Laws, nevertheless the changes made in chapter 248, entitled "Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction," with corresponding alterations in the liquor statute, establish the legislative intent to enact in 1891 a code of procedure uniform in all criminal cases. If the legislature intended a special procedure in liquor cases in 1878, in 1891...