In re Crane

151 P. 1006, 27 Idaho 671, 1915 Ida. LEXIS 90
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 11, 1915
StatusPublished
Cited by53 cases

This text of 151 P. 1006 (In re Crane) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho 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 Crane, 151 P. 1006, 27 Idaho 671, 1915 Ida. LEXIS 90 (Idaho 1915).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

— The petitioner, Ed Crane, was arrested upon the charge of having intoxicating liquor in his possession in Latah county and upon preliminary examination had before a magistrate was held to answer said charge in the district court, and in default of bail was committed to the custody of the sheriff. This proceeding was commenced by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to procure his release from custody.

The agreed facts necessary to a determination of the questions of law here presented are that on the 16th day of May, 1915, the petitioner had in his possession in Latah county a quantity of whisky for his own use and not for the purpose of selling it or of giving it away; that Latah county now is and on May 16, 1915, was a prohibition district within the meaning of secs. 2, 15 and 22 of chap. 11 (p. 41), Sess. Laws, 1915, which sections are as follows:

“See. 2. It shall be unlawful for any person, firm, company, or corporation, its officers or agents, to sell, manufacture or dispose of any intoxicating liquor or alcohol of any kind within a prohibition district or to have in his or its possession or to transport any intoxicating liquor or alcohol within a prohibition district unless the same was procured and is so possessed and transported under a permit as hereinafter provided: provided, that so long as the manufacture of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes shall not be prohibited within the State by the Constitution or by general law applicable by its terms to the State as a whole it shall not be unlawful for any person, company, or corporation to manufacture intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes in a prohibition district for transportation to and sale outside of a prohibition district: provided, that nothing in this Act [679]*679shall be construed to apply to the manufacture, transportation or sale of wood or denatured alcohol.”
“Sec. 15. It shall be unlawful for any person, to import, ship, sell, transport, deliver, receive or have in his possession any intoxicating liquors except as in this Act provided.”
“See. 22. It shall be unlawful for any person, firm, company, corporation or agent to have in his or its possession any intoxicating liquors of any kind for any use or purpose except the same shall have been obtained and is so possessed under a permit authorized by this Act.”

The only means provided by the act for procuring intoxicating liquors in a prohibition district for any purpose relates to wine to be used for sacramental purposes and pure alcohol to be used for scientific or mechanical purposes, or for compounding or preparing medicine, so that the possession of whisky, or of any intoxicating liquor, other than wine and pure alcohol for the uses above-mentioned, is prohibited.

One of the contentions made upon behalf of petitioner is that the sections quoted are in contravention of sec. 1 of the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States, and also of sec. 13, art. 1 of the constitution of Idaho, and that the act in question is not a reasonable exercise of the police power of the state and is void. See. 1 of the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States is as follows:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Sec. 13 of art. 1 of the constitution of Idaho provides, among other things: “No person shall .... be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

[680]*680No fixed rule has been discovered by which to determine whether or not a statute of the nature of the one under consideration is a proper exercise of the police power, but it may be said the questions propounded to the courts are: Does the statute purport to have been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety? Has it a real and substantial relation to those objects, or is it, upon the other hand, a palpable invasion of rights secured by the constitution? Questions as to the wisdom and expediency of such legislation address themselves to the legislative, not to the judicial branch of the government.

In the ease of Ah Lim v. Territory, 1 Wash. 156, 24 Pac. 588, 9 L. R. A. 395, Mr. Justice Dunbar, quoting from Williams v. Cammach, 27 Miss. 209, 61 Am. Dec. 508, said: “The legislative pow;er ‘may be unwisely exercised or abused, yet it is a power entrusted by the constitution to the legislature, which, while - exercised within the scope of the grant, is subject alone to their discretion; with which the judicial tribunals have no right to interfere because, in their judgment, the action of the legislature is contrary to the principles of natural justice.’ ” (See, also, State v. Lewis, 134 Ind. 250, 33 N. E. 1024, 20 L. R. A. 52; People of State of New York ex rel. Silz v. Hesterberg, 211 U. S. 31, 29 Sup. Ct. 10, 53 L. ed. 75.)

Mr. Justice Hughes in delivering the opinion of the supreme court of the United States in case of Purity Extract & Tonic Co. v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192, 33 Sup. Ct. 44, 57 L. ed. 184, said: “That the state, in exercise of its police power, ■may prohibit the selling of intoxicating liquors, is undoubted. .... It is also well established that, when a state exerting its recognized authority, undertakes to suppress what it is free to regard as a public evil, it may adopt such measures having reasonable relation to that end as it may deem necessary in order to make its action effective. It does not follow that because a transaction, separately considered, is innocuous, it may not be included in a prohibition the scope of which is regarded as essential in the legislative judgment to accomplish a purpose within the admitted power of the government. [681]*681. . . . With the wisdom of the exercise of that judgment the court has no concern; and unless it clearly appears that the enactment has no substantial relation to a proper purpose’, it cannot be said that the limit of legislative power has been transcended. To hold otherwise would be to substitute judicial opinion of expediency for the will of the legislature, — a notion foreign to our constitutional system.”

Mr. Justice Harlan, delivering the opinion of the court in ease of Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 8 Sup. Ct. 273, 31 L. ed. 205, said:

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Bluebook (online)
151 P. 1006, 27 Idaho 671, 1915 Ida. LEXIS 90, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-crane-idaho-1915.