Yerby v. Cochrane

• Decision Date: 20 December 1893
• Parties: YERBY, COUNTY TREASURER, v. COCHRANE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

14 So. 355

101 Ala. 541

YERBY, COUNTY TREASURER, v. COCHRANE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

December 20, 1893

Appeal from circuit court, Tuscaloosa county; S. H. Sprott, Judge.

Action by W. G. Cochrane against J. S. Yerby, as treasurer of the county of Tuscaloosa, to recover the amount due on certain state witnesses' tickets that had been issued by the clerk of the county court of Tuscaloosa county. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals. Reversed.

The plaintiff based his right to recover on an act of the general assembly entitled "An act to provide for and regulate the pay of state witnesses in Tuscaloosa county," and alleged in his complaint that said state witnesses' tickets had been regularly indorsed to him, and he was the owner thereof. The defendant demurred to the complaint on the ground that the said act of the general assembly, on which the plaintiff's demand was based, and on which the complaint counted, was unconstitutional and void, as violative of section 2, art. 4, of the constitution of Alabama, and that the subject of the act was not clearly expressed in the title, and that the said act contains more than one subject. This demurrer was overruled, and the defendant pleaded two special pleas. Plaintiff's demurrer to these pleas being sustained, the defendant declined to plead further, and there was judgment rendered for the plaintiff upon a verdict being returned by the jury.

Foster & Oliver, for appellant.

Wm. G Cochrane and A. B. McEachin, for appellee.

McCLELLAN J.

Act No 418, passed at the session of 1892-93 of the general assembly, (Acts 1892-93, pp. 934-936,) is entitled "An act to provide for and regulate the pay of state witnesses in Tuscaloosa county." The subject of the enactment, thus expressed in its caption, is provided for in the body of the act; but, in addition to provisions cognate, germane, and properly referable to a scheme for the payment of state witnesses in said county, there are incorporated in the text of the act provisions and regulations for the payment of the fees of the circuit court clerk and the sheriff of that county, earned in criminal cases, of which, obviously, there is no intimation, much less an expression, in the caption. Thus, section 1 of the act provides "that one half of all the fines and forfeitures collected in the circuit or county courts, or any other courts of Tuscaloosa county, and all the proceeds of the hire of county convicts of Tuscaloosa county, is hereby set apart and appropriated to the payment of witnesses for the state in criminal prosecutions in said courts, clerk of the circuit court and sheriff who shall be summoned and required to appear in criminal prosecutions after the approval of this act. The remaining one half of the fine and forfeiture fund shall be held to pay present outstanding claims against said fund, as now provided by law." And by section 8 it is provided "that when any convict is sentenced to hard labor for the county to pay the fine and costs, the hirer of such convict shall pay to the proper officer the costs due the state's witnesses and officers of the court, which accrued in such conviction in behalf of the state, in advance, and such sum shall be placed to the credit of the fine and forfeiture fund, and shall be disbursed by the treasurer, or person acting as such according to the provisions of this act." The italicization in these excerpts is ours. The purpose of the legislature to provide in this act for and regulate the payment of the costs due the clerk and sheriff is further accentuated by the requirement of section 7 that all fines and forfeitures should "be collected in lawful money of the United States, and none other," and that such money should be paid into the county treasury to the credit of the fine and forfeiture fund, so that the claims of officers could not be utilized by them in the payment of fines and forfeitures, as they might have been under the law theretofore existing; and also by reference to the provision of the first section quoted above, to the effect that the remaining one-half of the fine and forfeiture fund...