The State v. Gurlagh

• Decision Date: 30 October 1888
• Citation: 40 N.W. 141,76 Iowa 141
• Parties: THE STATE v. GURLAGH
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

40 N.W. 141

76 Iowa 141

THE STATE v. GURLAGH

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

October 30, 1888

Decided October, 1888.

Appeal from Wapello District Court.--HON. CHAS. D. LEGGETT, Judge.

DEFENDANT was indicted and convicted of keeping a nuisance by maintaining a place for the sale of intoxicating liquors. He now appeals to this court.

AFFIRMED.

Williams & Jacques, for appellant.

A. J Baker, Attorney General, for the State.

BECK J. ROBINSON, J., SEEVERS, C. J., (dissenting.)

OPINION

BECK, J.

I.

A motion by defendant to set aside the indictment was overruled. This decision is now made the ground of complaint. The facts involved in this point are these: On the first day of the term twelve grand jurors appeared; having been summoned under the provision of chapter 42, Acts Twenty-First General Assembly, amending and changing the section of the Code relating to grand jurors, their number, etc. The offense charged in the indictment was committed after that statute went into effect. From the jurors appearing, the clerk selected seven by lot. Prior to impaneling the grand jury, one of the jurors was excused. The other persons not drawn had not been discharged. The sheriff, being so directed by the court, selected one of the jurors not drawn to take the place of the juror excused. The grand jury, constituted of the six jurors not discharged and the one selected by the sheriff, was then impaneled and sworn. The defendant insists that the grand jury was not legally constituted, for the reason that the jury was filled after one had been excused, by the selection of the sheriff, and not by drawing from the list of jurors. Code, section 4256, as amended by chapter 42, Acts Twenty-First General Assembly, is in the following language: "At a term of court at which grand jurors are required to appear, the panel shall be called, and the names of the grand jurors appearing shall be entered upon the record. From the number of jurors thus summoned and appearing the clerk shall select, by lot, the required number. If more grand jurors have appeared than the number required to fill the panel, the remaining number shall be discharged for the term. If from any cause, either then or afterwards, the number of the panel be reduced to a less number than required, the court may order the sheriff of the county to summon a sufficient number of qualified persons to complete the panel." The last sentence directs the sheriff, upon the order of the court, to fill the panel when the number thereof is reduced for any cause at the time of the drawing of the jurors or afterwards. This is a positive and plain direction, which we think will admit of no other interpretation. Some doubt on this point possibly may arise, in view of the fact that the word "panel" in the first sentence of the section is applied to the whole number of jurors summoned. But in the other sentences the word is used twice, and is applied to the jurors selected by the clerk by lot. The word, being applied to both, must be held to mean the one or the other, according to the connection in which it is used. It is applied in the last two sentences to the selected jurors, and, under the plain language of the section, a vacancy in their number, or the place of one excused, is to be filled by the sheriff. We think the district court rightly overruled the motion to set aside the indictment.

II. The indictment alleges that the nuisance was kept in a three-story brick building. The defendant insists that the proof varies from this allegation, in that it shows the nuisance was maintained in a one-story addition to a three-story building, and that defendant's mother occupied the three-story part of the building. But the evidence shows that the room in which the liquors were kept has a door into the other part of the house occupied by the mother, and is used in common by both as a kitchen. The three-story part or the first floor is used by the mother as a cigar-stand and restaurant. It appears to us that the evidence supports the conclusion that the three-story part of the house, as well as the one-story part, was used in maintaining the nuisance; inasmuch as customers passed through the three-story part to reach the little room in which the liquors were kept. No other questions arise in the case. The judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

DISSENT BY: ROBINSON

ROBINSON J., (dissenting.)

I am unable to assent to the construction which the foregoing opinion places upon section 4256 of the Code, as amended. It was said in Noble v. State, 1 Greene 325, that "the intention of the legislature is the leading, and indeed the only, object to be inquired into by a court in construing legislative enactments. * * * Where the object of the law-makers may be collected from prior existing laws, and from the expressed language of many other sections, * * * we may be justified in giving a construction contrary to the literal applications of the words. It frequently becomes the duty of courts, in giving effect to the manifest intention of a statute, to restrain, enlarge, or qualify the ordinary and literal meaning of the words used." In Williams v. Poor, 65 Iowa 410, 21 N.W. 753, the court said: "The real intent of a statute, if it can with reasonable certainty be ascertained, will prevail over the literal sense of the words employed." The rule of construction announced in those cases has been frequently approved. Crabell v. Wapello Coal Co., 68 Iowa 751, 28 N.W. 56; Dilger v. Palmer, 60 Iowa 128, 14 N.W. 134; State v. Sherman, 46 Iowa 415; Tully v. Beaubien, 10 Iowa 187. See, also, Sedg. St. & Const. Law, 194-197, 325. Courts have carried the rule so far as to give to words a meaning contrary to that usually applied to them. Williams v: Poor, 65 Iowa 410, 21 N.W. 753, and cases therein cited; Oltrogge v. Schutte, 51 Iowa 279, 1 N.W. 544; Sedg. St. & Const. Law, 254. In order to ascertain the legislative intent, it is proper to consider the statute as a whole, together with other statutes relating to the same subject, antecedent and contemporaneous legislation, the defect which the statute was designed to supply, and the remedy which it was designed to give. Woods v. Mains, 1 Greene...