In re Cerfoglio for a Writ of Habeas Corpus

195 P. 90, 44 Nev. 343
CourtNevada Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 15, 1921
DocketNo. 2479
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 195 P. 90 (In re Cerfoglio for a Writ of Habeas Corpus) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nevada Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Cerfoglio for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, 195 P. 90, 44 Nev. 343 (Neb. 1921).

Opinion

By the Court,

Ducker, J.:

This is an original proceeding in habeas corpus.

Petitioner was convicted in the Second judicial district court in and for the county of Washoe, State of Nevada, of violating the prohibition law of this state. He was thereafter sentenced to serve a term of two months in the county jail of said county and remanded into the custody of the sheriff of the county for the serving of sentence. He alleges that he is unlawfully imprisoned and restrained of his liberty, and seeks to be discharged upon this writ.

The charging part of the information upon which petitioner was tried and convicted in the district court is as follows:

“That the said defendant on the 26th day of August, A.D. 1920, or thereabouts, and before the filing of this information, at and within the county of Washoe, State of Nevada, did, then and there, wilfully and unlawfully, keep and have, for personal use and otherwise, intoxicating liquors at a place where soft drinks are, and were on said date, sold, to wit, the Europa Hotel, situated at No. 246 Lake Street, in the city of Reno, county of Washoe, State of Nevada, said Europa Hotel not being then and there a drug store.”

The information is based upon section 7 of the prohibition act (Stats. 1919, c. 1). This section provides :

“It shall be unlawful for any person to keep or have for personal use or otherwise, or to use, or permit another to have, keep or use, intoxicating liquors at any [346]*346restaurant, store, office building, club, place where soft drinks are sold (except a drug store may have and sell alcohol and wines as provided by sections four and twenty-four), fruit stand, news stand, room, or place where bowling alleys, billiard or pool tables are maintained, livery stable, public building, park, road, street, or alley. * * * ”

Petitioner attacks section 7 of the act upon the'ground that it is unconstitutional. It is insisted that the title of the act is not broad enough to include the subject-matter of said section 7, and that it is therefore inhibited by that part of section 17 of article 4 of the constitution of the State of Nevada, which provides:

“Each law enacted by the legislature shall embrace but one subject and matters properly connected therewith, which subject shall be briefly expressed in the title.”

This contention presents the only question we have to determine, as all other objections to the legality of petitioner’s confinement were expressly waived on the oral argument in this court. The title of the prohibition act reads:

“An act to prohibit the manufacture, sale, keeping for sale, and gift, of malt, vinous and spirituous liquors, and other intoxicating drinks, mixtures or preparations, making the superintendent of the Nevada state police ex officio commissioner of prohibition, and defining his duties; and providing for the enforcement of this act and prescribing penalties for the violation thereof.” Stats. 1919, p. 1.

It is urged that the title is restrictive, and that the proscription of the possession of intoxicating liquors for personal use at the places designated in said section has no logical connection with the subject expressed in the title, and that, as the purpose of the constitutional inhibition is to prevent the legislature, or the people acting-in a legislative capacity, as the case may be, from being misled by the title into enacting legislation dealt with, [347]*347foreign to the subject indicated by the title, said section 7 is so incongruous thereto as to offend this constitutional principle.

1. We recognize the purpose of the provision of the constitution in question is to prevent inconsiderate or undesirable legislation through trickery or inattention.

Judge Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Limitations, in discussing the evils designed to be remedied by such provisions, says:

“It may therefore be assumed as settled that the purpose of these provisions was: First, to prevent hodgepodge or ‘log-rolling’ legislation; second, to prevent surprise or fraud upon the legislature by means of provisions in bills of which the titles gave no intimation, and which might therefore be overlooked and carelessly and unintentionally adopted; and, third, to fairly apprise the people, through such publication of legislative proceedings as is usually made, of the subjects of legislation that are being considered in order that they may have opportunity of being heard thereon, by petition or otherwise, if they should so desire. The general purpose of these provisions is accomplished when a law has but one general object, which is fairly indicated by its title. To require every end and means necessary or convenient for the accomplishment of this general object to be provided for by a special act relating to that alone would not only be unreasonable, but would actually render legislation impossible.” Cooley’s Const. Lim. 172.

He adds on page 175:

“There has been a general disposition to construe the constitutional provision liberally, rather than to embarrass legislation by a construction whose strictness is unnecessary to the accomplishment of the beneficial purposes for which it has been adopted.”

2. The principle involved has received consideration in former decisions of this court and the rule recognized and applied that the provision, though mandatory, [348]*348should be liberally construed. State v. Ah Sam, 15 Nev. 27, 37 Am. Rep. 454; State ex rel. Sparks v. State Bank and Trust Co., 31 Nev. 456, 103 Pac. 407, 105 Pac. 567.

3. The object of the act is inseparably connected with its subject; and if it can be said that the suppression of the personal use of the liquors mentioned in the title at the places designated in section 7 has any legitimate-tendency to promote the object of the act, it is not without the scope of the title, and is therefore unassailable as an infraction of the constitution. . Is it calculated to perform such an office? We have no doubt of it. In Ex Parte Zwissig, 42 Nev. 360, 178 Pac. 20, this court declared both the object and purpose of the act as well as the purpose of section 7. In regard to the former we said that the “plain purpose of the act is not only to suppress traffic in the concoctions, liquors, and drinks mentioned in the act, but mainly to suppress their consumption, except where otherwise indicated, and in case of doubt every portion of the act must be construed in the light of that object.” In respect to the latter provision the court declared that its purpose was to prevent an “evasion of the act.” We see no reason to recede from these positions.

Now the title of the act declares, briefly, the subject of the legislation covered in the act, namely, the prohibition of the manufacture, sale, keeping for sale, and gift of the liquors mentioned. The object, the supression of these liquors, is obvious from the title. That the framers of the act would include in the body of it the necessary mean's to enforce it was to be expected. That it is unnecessary and often not conducive to proper legislation to include such means in the title is well-established constitutional law which presumes that no one will be misled by such omissions.

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Bluebook (online)
195 P. 90, 44 Nev. 343, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-cerfoglio-for-a-writ-of-habeas-corpus-nev-1921.