The City of Indianapolis v. Huegele

• Decision Date: 10 October 1888
• Docket Number: 14,307
• Citation: 18 N.E. 172,115 Ind. 581
• Parties: The City of Indianapolis v. Huegele
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

18 N.E. 172

115 Ind. 581

The City of Indianapolis v. Huegele

No. 14,307

Supreme Court of Indiana

October 10, 1888

From the Marion Circuit Court.

Judgment affirmed, with costs.

W. L Taylor and H. E. Smith, for appellant.

J. N Scott, for appellee.

OPINION

Zollars, J.

Section 2 of an ordinance of the city of Indianapolis, passed in 1866, is as follows:

"Any person who shall wrongfully interfere with any policeman or officer of said city, while making an arrest, shall be fined in any sum not exceeding one hundred dollars."

Can appellee be fined under this ordinance for having interfered with a policeman in making an arrest in 1887? If he can, the judgment must be reversed. If he can not, the court below ruled correctly, and the judgment must be affirmed.

Section 67 of the criminal procedure act of 1881, R. S. 1881, section 1640, provides that "Whenever any act is made a public offence against the State by any statute and the punishment prescribed therefor, such act shall not be made punishable by any ordinance of any incorporated city or town; and any ordinance to such effect shall be null and void, and all prosecutions for any such public offence as may be within the jurisdiction of the authorities of such incorporated cities or towns, by and before such authorities, shall be had under the State law only."

If, then, the interfering with an Indianapolis policeman in the making of an arrest is made a public offence against the State by any statute, and the punishment prescribed therefor, this prosecution by the city under the ordinance can not be maintained. To determine that question, we must look to the metropolitan police act of 1883, Acts 1883, p. 89, under which the police force of Indianapolis is appointed. That act provides for a metropolitan police, and the establishment of a board of metropolitan police commissioners, in cities of twenty-nine thousand or more inhabitants, according to the census of 1880, and for the appointment by such board of a superintendent of police, captains, sergeants, detectives, and such other officers and patrolmen as they may deem advisable, etc. Section 10 of the act is as follows: "Any person or persons, or corporation, or common council, or other municipal, township, county, or State officer or officers, who shall in any manner interfere with or interrupt the board of metropolitan police commissioners of such city, in any act of theirs, while in the legal discharge of their duties, as provided in this act, or of the police force herein authorized to be created, or shall prevent such board or force from discharging their duties, as defined in this act, shall, upon conviction before the mayor or city judge, or before the circuit or criminal court of said county, be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars; to which may be added imprisonment for not less than ten days nor more than ninety days, for each separate offence."

Counsel for appellant contend that this statute does not make an interruption, interference with, or the resisting of, a police officer or patrolman an offence. They say: "It is maintained by the city that section 10 of the act above quoted, makes provision only against the interference with the board of metropolitan police commissioners, and prescribes a penalty only for such persons as have power to interfere with, and interrupt, the board of metropolitan police commissioners."

They insist that the real purpose of the section may be discovered by interpreting it to read as follows: "Any person * * * who interferes with or interrupts the board of metropolitan police commissioners of such city in any act of theirs, * * * or of the police force," etc. They say: "The board of metropolitan police commissioners (of the city) is the only object of the verbs. This object is modified by two phrases--prepositional phrases: 1st. In any act of theirs. 2d. Or of the police force, etc. The board being the only object, the interference can only be with it," etc.

In their reply brief they say further: "The bill offers no protection to an officer at all, and was not designed to do so. It was not designed to change anything except the method of appointing the city's police force. The point the city contends for is, that any such an act as interferes with the working of this new method of appointment, or with the new system of appointment, is punishable under section 10 of the metropolitan police bill," etc.

Counsel for appellant also contend that if it should be conceded that section 10 provides a penalty for interfering with, or interrupting the police force, it is only for interrupting or interfering with the force as a collective body, when acting as a body, and does not apply when such interruption or interference is with a single policeman in the discharge of his duties.

Without following the arguments in detail, these statements and quotations from appellant's briefs show, in general, the position of its counsel upon this branch of the case.

After a careful examination of section 10, supra, and the whole of the metropolitan police act, we are unable to give our sanction to the construction contended for by appellant's counsel.

That section 10 makes certain acts as connected with the police force an offence, and prescribes a punishment for persons guilty of such acts, we think is quite clear.

Omitting for the present that portion of the section which provides against interruptions and interference, and noticing that "such board and force," immediately following, mean board of metropolitan police commissioners and police force, the section may be read thus: Any person or persons, etc., who shall prevent the board of metropolitan police commissioners, or police force, from discharging their duties as defined in this act, shall, upon conviction, etc., be fined, etc. The board of metropolitan police commissioners and police force are both objects of the verb, and to prevent either of them from discharging their duties as defined in the act is an offence for which the same punishment is provided.

It yet remains to be determined whether the offence defined can be committed only against the police force when acting as a body, as contended by counsel. That the Legislature did not so intend seems clear to us. In the first place, occasions requiring the united action of the whole force must be very rare. A riot would be such an occasion, but riots are not likely to occur in Indianapolis, nor, indeed, in any of our cities.

The police force provided for by the act have not authority to act collectively or otherwise in the establishment of rules and regulations for the government of the force. That authority is given by the act to the board of metropolitan police commissioners. It is hardly reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the Legislature intended to provide against preventing the police force from discharging their duties while acting as a body, when they so rarely thus act, and intended, also, to leave the officers and members of the force without any sort of protection when acting separately in the discharge of their duties. In the second place, we think, that, looking to the act as a whole, it is manifest that the intention was to provide against preventing the discharge of duty on the part of the force whether acting as a body or individually, and more especially when acting individually, as in that capacity about all the service of the force is rendered.

The language of section 10 is, any person, etc., who shall prevent the board and force from discharging their duties "as defined in this act." The duties of the board are defined, and so, too, are the duties of the police force defined in the act, but, as to the police force, the duties so defined are the duties to be performed by the force when acting separately as officers and patrolmen, constituting the force.

The 6th section of the act, for example, provides that the officers and members of the metropolitan police force shall possess all the common law and statutory powers of constables, except for the service of civil process.

It is provided by the 8th section that the members of the metropolitan police force shall have the exclusive power, and it shall be their duty, to serve all process within such city issuing from the mayor or city judge, etc., etc.

If section 10 does not provide a penalty for preventing the policemen from discharging their duties, it provides nothing in relation to the police force, because, as above stated, the offence defined in the act is the preventing of the force from discharging the duties defined in the act. The duties defined in the act to be performed are not to be performed by the force acting in a body, but when acting separately. Therefore, if the section is to have any force and practical application, it must be construed as meaning that any person who shall prevent policemen from discharging the duties defined in the act, shall be guilty of an offence and punished.

Looking to the whole act, we are clearly of the opinion that it must be so construed. Looking to the whole act, it is apparent that "police force" was used by the law-makers as meaning, not only the force as a body, but also the constituent members of that body. In that sense "police force" seems to have been used in other sections of the act.

In the 5th section it is provided that the board of metropolitan police commissioners shall "exercise the entire control of the police force of such city." That evidently, means that the board shall exercise control over the force as a body, and over the individual members constituting the body. So, in section 11, it is provided that additional policemen, to be appointed in certain cases, "shall...