Ex parte Kerby

205 P. 279, 103 Or. 612, 36 A.L.R. 1451, 1922 Ore. LEXIS 172
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 21, 1922
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 205 P. 279 (Ex parte Kerby) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex parte Kerby, 205 P. 279, 103 Or. 612, 36 A.L.R. 1451, 1922 Ore. LEXIS 172 (Or. 1922).

Opinion

McCOURT, J.

— This is an appeal from an order and judgment of the Circuit Court denying a petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, directed to L. H. Compton, warden of the State Penitentiary, commanding him to produce Elvie D. Kerby, held and in the custody of the said L. H. Compton, in order that the court might determine whether the imprisonment and restraint of the said Elvie D. Kerby was and is illegal, as alleged in the petition for the writ.

Kerby, in whose behalf this proceeding was instituted, was regularly indicted, tried and convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to be punished by death: State v. Rathie, 101 Or. 339 (199 Pac. 169, 200 Pac. 790). Kerby is in the custody of the superintendent of the State Penitentiary, under and by virtue of the warrant and command of the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for Umatilla County, authorizing and commanding said superintendent to carry into effect and fully execute the aforesaid judgment. The statute provides that the punishment of death must be inflicted by hanging defendant by the neck until he is dead, and must be executed by the superintendent, or one of the wardens of the State Penitentiary, and take place within the enclosure of the penitentiary: Or. L., § 1602 — 2.

The crime of murder in the first degree was punished by death under the statutes of the territory of Oregon, which statutes were continued in force by the state Constitution adopted by the people of the territory in 1857. The legislature enacted a Criminal [614]*614Code in 1864, and therein re-enacted the territorial statute prescribing the death penalty for murder in the first degree, which enactment was a valid exercise of the legislative power under the Constitution: State v. Finch, 54 Or. 482, 498 (103 Pac. 505); State v. Anderson, 10 Or. 448.

The death penalty continued as the punishment for murder in the first degree until 1914, when further infliction of that penalty was prohibited by adoption of an amendment to the Constitution, by adding a section to Article I (Bill of Bights) as follows:

“The death penalty shall not be inflicted upon any person under the laws of Oregon. The maximum punishment which may be inflicted shall be life imprisonment.”

Thereafter at a special election in May 1920, the Constitution was again amended by expressly repealing the amendatory provision above quoted, and substituting therefor the following:

“The penalty for murder in the first degree shall be death, except when the trial jury shall in its verdict recommend life imprisonment, in which case the penalty shall be life imprisonment.”

The crime for which Kerby was convicted was committed after the adoption of the constitutional amendment last mentioned. The Constitution provides the manner in which it may be amended, and in each instance of the adoption of the foregoing amendments, all the essential requirements as to form and procedure in the enactment of such amendments were observed.

The first above amendment was proposed and adopted under the initiative power to propose amendments to the Constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the legislative [615]*615assembly, reserved to tbe people in Section 1, Article IV of the Constitution, while tbe second amendment was proposed by tbe legislative assembly and submitted to tbe people for tbeir adoption under and by virtue of Section 1, Article XVII of tbe Constitution. Tbe petitioner contends that' tbe latter method of amending tbe Constitution is not as broad in its scope as that first mentioned, and does not extend to amendments designed to affect a surrender of rights reserved in that part of tbe Constitution designated tbe Bill of Bights, nor to enlarge limitations upon tbe state government found therein. Section 1, Article XVII provides:

“Any amendment or amendments to this Constitution may be proposed in either branch of tbe legislative assembly and if tbe same shall be agreed to by a majority of all .the members elected to each of tbe two bouses, such proposed amendment or amendments shall, with tbe yeas and nays thereon, be entered in tbeir journals and referred by tbe secretary of state to the- people for tbeir approval or rejection, at tbe next regular general election, except when tbe legislative assembly shall order a special election for that purpose.”

1. Tbe authority thus given the legislature to propose amendments to tbe Constitution is not confined or restricted to any particular section or part thereof, but extends to every part thereof and to every section in every part thereof, and no provision is found elsewhere in tbe Constitution that exempts any part or section of tbe Constitution from tbe exercise of tbe legislature of its authority given by tbe Constitution to propose amendments to that instrument. That tbe Constitution may be amended by tbe method provided in Section 1, Article XVII of the Constitution, is settled : State v. Kellaher, 90 Or. 538 (177 Pac. 944); [616]*616Hawley v. Anderson, 99 Or. 191 (190 Pac. 1097, 195 Pac. 358); Boyd v. Olcott, 102 Or. 326 (202 Pac. 431).

2. A provision in the Constitution does not derive its force or efficacy from its position in that instrument. A private right reserved by the Constitution is equally as effective when found in one article in the Constitution as in another. The Constitution provides in Section 33, Article I (Bill of Rights) :

“This enumeration of rights and privileges shall not be construed to impair or deny others retained by the people.”

3. Petitioner argues that the constitutional amendment intended to restore the death penalty as a punishment for crime is something more than a mere amendment; that it repeals a previously existing valid provision of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, preserving to the individual immunity against the taking or forfeiture of his life as a punishment for crime. It is urged that the power to amend does not include the power to repeal such a provision. It was held in the case of Hawley v. Anderson, 99 Or. 191 (190 Pac. 1097, 195 Pac. 358), at page 201 of the opinion, that a constitutional amendment,

“ * * may amend or repeal a prior constitutional or statute provision in conflict with it, just as one statute may amend or repeal a prior one, if such is its necessary effect or intent.”

To the same effect is State v. Langworthy, 55 Or. 303 (104 Pac. 424, 106 Pac. 336). These cases establish that provisions of the Constitution may be repealed by implication. It follows, necessarily, that a like repeal may be accomplished by an express provision in a constitutional amendment proposed and later ratified and adopted by the people.

[617]*617In petitioner’s brief it is said:

“The most diligent research has failed to show one instance where the state has once asked the citizen to forfeit a natural right, after it had once been placed in the Bill of Bights, except Arkansas and in that instance the court (Eason v. State, 11 Ark. 481) held that it could not be done.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
205 P. 279, 103 Or. 612, 36 A.L.R. 1451, 1922 Ore. LEXIS 172, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-kerby-or-1922.