In Re Simmons

1911 OK CR 14, 112 P. 951, 4 Okla. Crim. 662, 1911 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 22
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedJanuary 9, 1911
DocketNo. A-975.
StatusPublished
Cited by32 cases

This text of 1911 OK CR 14 (In Re Simmons) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Simmons, 1911 OK CR 14, 112 P. 951, 4 Okla. Crim. 662, 1911 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 22 (Okla. Ct. App. 1911).

Opinion

DOYLE, Judge.

The petitioner was charged with having on December 10, 1910, violated ordinance number 756 of the city of Tulsa, by then and there unlawfully having in his possession intoxicating liquors with intent to barter, sell, give away and otherwise furnish the same contrary to the statute and said ordinance. TJpon his arraignment, in the municipal court of said city he filed a demurrer to said complaint, on the grounds that said municipal court had no jurisdiction to try petitioner on said charge, for the reason that the aforesaid ordinances of the city of Tulsa were void, because the acts alleged to have constituted said offense are made a public offense under the statutes and the Constitution of Oklahoma and jurisdiction to try such offense is conferred exclusively upon the county court of Tulsa county, wherefore the board of commissioners of the city of Tulsa were without authority to *668 pass, approve or adopt said ordinances or either of them. The demurrer'was overruled by the court. Whereupon petitioner demanded a trial by jury, which demand was refused by the court. Thereupon the trial was had in said court upon said complaint, and petitioner was found guilty by the court and his punishment assessed at a fine of one hundred dollars and ten days’ imprisonment in the city jail of the city of Tulsa.

The principal question presented for our consideration is: lias the board of commissioners of the city of Tulsa power to prohibit by ordinance the possession of intoxicating' liquors within said city with .intent to sell, barter, give away, or otherwise’furnish the same contrary to law and to prescribe the punishment for a violation thereof ?

The city of Tulsa is a city of the first class and is under a charter form of government, adopted under the authority and in pursuance to section 3, art. 18 of the Constitution, and this question must be determined upon a consideration of the powers granted under the constitutional provision, the statutes, and under its charter.

Section 3, art. 18 of the Constitution, provides that:

“Section 3. (.a) Any city containing a population of more than two thousand inhabitants may frame a charter for its own government, consistent with and subject to the Constitution and laws of this state, by causing a board of freeholders, composed of two from each warcl, who shall be qualified electors of said city, to be elected by the qualified electors of said city, at any general or special election, whose duty it shall be, within ninety days' after such election, to prepare and propose a charter for such city, which shall be signed in duplicate by the members of such board or a majority of them, and returned, one copy of sajd charter to the chief executive officer of such city, and the other to the register of deeds of the county in which said city shall be situated. Such proposed charter shall then be published in one or more newspapers published and of general circulation within said city, for at least twenty-one days, if in a daily paper, or in three consecutive issues, if in a weekly paper, and the first publication shall be made within twenty days after completion of the charter; and within thirty days, and not earlier than twenty days after such publica *669 tion, it shall be submitted to the qualified electors 'of said, city at a general or special election, and if a majority of such qualified electors voting thereon shall ratify the same, it shall thereafter be submitted to the Governor for his approval, and the Governor shall approve the same if it shall not be in conflict with the Constitution and laws of this state. Upon such approval it shall become the organic law of such city and supersede any existing charter and all amendments thereof and all ordinances inconsistent with it. A copy of such charter, certified by the chief executive officer and authenticated by the seal of such city, setting forth the submission of such charter to the electors and its ratification by them shall, after the approval of such charter by the Governor, be made in duplicate and deposited, one in the office of the Secretary, of State, and'the other, after being .recorded in the office of said register of deeds, shall be deposited in the archives of the city; and thereafter all courts shall take judicial notice of said charter. The charter so ratified may be amended by proposals therefor, submitted by the legislative authority of the city to the qualified electors thereof (or bjr petition as hereinafter provided) at a general or special election, and ratified by a majority of the qualified electors voting thereon, and approved by the Governor as herein provided for the approval of the charter.”

Section 2 of article 2 of the charter of the city of Tulsa provides :

“The city of Tulsa shall have power to enact and to enforce ordinances necessary to protect health, life and property and to prevent' and summarily abate and remove nuisances, and to preserve and enforce the good government, order and security of the city and the inhabitants of said citjq and to enact and enforce any and all ordinances upon any subject; provided that no ordinance shall be enacted inconsistent either with the Constitution or law of the State of Oklahoma, or inconsistent with the provisions of fhis charter; and provided further, that the specifications of particular, powers herein authorized shall never be construed as a limitation upon the general powers herein granted, it being intended by this charter to grant to and bestow upon the inhabitants of the city of Tulsa full power of self-government, and it shall have and exercise all powers of municipal government not prohibited to it by this charter or by some general law of the state of Oklahoma, or by the provisions of the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma.”

*670 And subdivision 3 of section 3 of article 2 of said charter in part provides:

“The city of Tulsa shall have power, by ordinance duly passed to prohibit dram shops, drinking saloons and other places where intoxicating liquors are sold.”

Section 2 of art. 18 of the Constitution provides that:

“Every municipal corporation now existing within this state shall continue with all of its present rights and powers until otherwise provided by law, and shall always have the additional rights and powers conferred by this Constitution.”

Section 683 of Snyder’s St. provides:

“The city council shall have power to enact ordinances to restrain, prohibit and suppress tippling shops, billiard tables, bowling alleys, houses of prostitution and other disorderly houses, and practices, games and gambling houses, desecrations of the Sabbath . day, commonly called Sunday, and all kinds of public indecencies. * * * ”

Begarding the foregoing constitutional, statutory and charter provisions, counsel for petitioner contend and argue that:

. “These are all general grants of powers for the general welfare of the city. We contend that the power to adopt the ordinances in question cannot rest in these general grants of power.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1911 OK CR 14, 112 P. 951, 4 Okla. Crim. 662, 1911 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 22, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-simmons-oklacrimapp-1911.