Treasurer of City of Elizabeth v. State

• Decision Date: 10 June 1901
• Parties: TREASURER OF CITY OF ELIZABETH et al. v. STATE (CENTRAL R. CO. OF NEW JERSEY, Prosecutor).
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

49 A. 682

66 N.J.L. 568

TREASURER OF CITY OF ELIZABETH et al.

v. STATE (CENTRAL R. CO. OF NEW JERSEY, Prosecutor).

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 10, 1901.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

The Central Railroad Company of New Jersey was convicted under an ordinance of the city of Elizabeth, and the state, on its orosecution, brings certiorari. Reversed.

Argued February term, 1900, before GUMMERE and FORT, JJ.

John L. Conover, for prosecutor.

James C. Connolly, for defendants.

FORT, J. This writ brings up a conviction of the defendant founded upon a complaint for the violation of section 187 of the Code of General Ordinances of the City of Elizabeth, adopted January 24, 1895. The charge in the complaint is for "obstructing Broadway, between Front and Third streets, in said city, by placing a train of freight and coal cars thereon," for the whole of Sunday, the 8th day of July, 1900. The record returned shows no legal conviction of the defendant. The conviction fails to set out any of the requisites to make it good. Proceedings in a police court of a city, without a jury, on a complaint for the violation of a city ordinance, are of a summary nature; and the conviction, as stated and signed by the magistrate, must contain everything to show a legal conviction. Salter v. City of Bayonne, 59 N. J. Law, 129, 36 Atl. 667. It is the same in cases under the disorderly act Preusser v. Cass, 54 N. J. Law, 522, 24 Atl. 480. The testimony sent up in this case was evidently taken steno-graphically, and at the end of it (evidently a note of the stenographer) appears the following: "The court found the defendant guilty of obstructing Broadway with railroad cars, between Front and Third streets, on July eighth, nineteen hundred, and imposed a fine of twenty-five dollars, in accordance with section 188 of the Code of General Ordinances of the City of Elizabeth." This is, of course, of no legal force whatever. At another part of the return the following appears: "Judgment. Aug. 17th. City of Elizabeth in the ease of violation of city ordinance, section 187, Code of General Ordinances, section aforesaid, on hearing the evidence of plaintiff and defendant, held the Central Railroad guilty, by obstructing said Broadway, by allowing cars to stand on the said, on Broadway, on the eighth day of July, nineteen hundred, imposed fine of $25.00 (twenty-five dollars). Penalty for violation of said ordinance, under section one hundred and eighty-eight. Owen P. Mahon, Police...