Ivey v. State

1924 OK CR 49, 223 P. 401, 26 Okla. Crim. 184, 1924 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 50
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedFebruary 25, 1924
DocketNo. A-3972.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 1924 OK CR 49 (Ivey v. State) 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
Ivey v. State, 1924 OK CR 49, 223 P. 401, 26 Okla. Crim. 184, 1924 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 50 (Okla. Ct. App. 1924).

Opinion

BESSEY, J.

A. L. Ivey, plaintiff in error, here designated the defendant, was convicted in the county court of Oklahoma county of keeping a place where intoxicating liquors were sold contrary to law, and his punishment was fixed at a fine of $500 and confinement in the county jail for a period of six months.

The facts may be briefly stated thus:

In May, 1920, the county attorney of Oklahoma county filed a petition in the district court charging the defendant and others with operating and maintaining a place where liquor was sold contrary to law, and where people were permitted to congregate for the purpose of drinking, in which the state asked and was granted a temporary injunction against the defendant and others, enjoining them from permitting or conducting such nuisance, as provided by section 7022, Comp. Stat. 1921. On August 21st following, the county attorney filed an application for a citation, charging that the defendant had violated the injunction theretofore granted by permitting numerous and divers persons to congregate at this place for the purpose of drinking intoxicating liquor, and that on that day whisky, wine, and beer were bartered, sold, and given away on the premises, and asked that the defendant be adjudged guilty of contempt of court for violating the injunction. On the same day there was filed in the county court an information charging the defendant with keeping a place where intoxicating liquor was sold, by the commission of the same identical acts set forth in the citation for contempt in the district court.

*186 In September following the defendant was tried before a jury in the district court, and found guilty of contempt for violating the orders of the court by operating a whisky joint in the place designated, in violation of the injunction order. Judgment upon the verdict fixed his punishment at a fine of $250 and imprisonment in the county jail for a period of 30 days. This case was appealed to the Criminal Court of Appeals, and the judgment therein later affirmed by this court. Ivey v. State, 21 Okla. Cr. 182, 206 Pac. 257.

In December following the case for keeping a place where intoxicating liquors were sold, in violation of the provisions of section 6999, Comp. Stat. 1921, came on to be heard in the county court, in which the defendant entered a plea in bar and of former jeopardy, on the ground that the same indentical facts on which he had been charged and found guilty in the contempt case in the district court were the identical acts constituting the offense charged in the information filed in the county court. His special plea in bar was by the court overruled. The defendant was then put on trial on his plea of not guilty, resulting in his conviction as hereinbefore stated.

The assignments of error urged by defendant may be grouped as follows:

First. That the defendant’s plea in bar should have been sustained.

Second. That there was a variance between the proof and the allegations in the information describing the location of the place where the liquor was alleged to have been sold.

Third. Because the trial court refused to permit the verdict of the jury to be impeached upon an offer to show that one of the jurors had heard of extraneous facts not in *187 evidence which, he communicated to the other jurors, and which probably induced the jury as a body to concur in the verdict rendered.

Section 7022, Comp. Stat. 1921, provides that a place where intoxicating liquors are illegally kept, and where people are in the habit of congregating for the purpose of buying and drinking intoxicating liquor, may be adjudged a public nuisance which any court of record may by order abate or enjoin, and that the owner, keeper, or manager of such place may be convicted and punished for keeping and maintaining such place. The punishment shall be imprisonment in the county jail for not less than 30 days nor more than 6 months, and a fine of not less than $50 nor more than $500. It is further provided in this section that any person violating the terms of any injunction granted in such proceeding shall be punished as for contempt, by a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $500, or by imprisonment in the county jail not less than 30 days nor more than 6 months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

An analysis of this statute discloses that it provides for two different and distinct offenses, both of which may relate to the same facts or grow out of one and the same transaction. The first is a criminal offense against the state for maintaining a nuisance; the second is a criminal offense for violating a particular order of the court. That the two are separate and different offenses is apparent from the language of the statute and from the fact that different punishments are prescribed, and because the two are of an entirely different nature, designed to redress different infractions of law. The former is a general proceeding for an offense against the peace and dignity of the state; the latter is a proceeding to preserve the dignity of the court and to aid in the enforcement of its orders.

*188 The distinction between the two offenses named in section .7022, supra, applies equally between the offense of violating a court order and the offense of maintaining a plaee where intoxicating liquors are kept for sale, defined in section 6999, Comp. Stat. 1921. These,’ likewise, are two separate offenses, in violation of two different laws designed to prevent or correct two different evils.

These statutes do not modify the general rule that one punished for contempt may be again punished for a violation of the general law where the facts show a Violation of a different penal law, even though both offenses grow out of one and the same transaction. For instance, an attorney might be punished in contempt proceedings for a direct or an indirect assault upon opposing counsel or upon the judge, and afterwards be punished criminally for whatever degree of assault he might have committed. Jones v. Mould, 151 Iowa, 599, 132 N. W. 45; Gibson v. Hutchinson, 148 Iowa, 139, 126 N. W. 790, Ann. Cas. 1912B, 1007; 13 C. J. “Contempts; Forms, Adjudication,” § 78. 6 R. C. L. 530; State v. Roby, 142 Ind. 168, 41 N. E. 145, 33 L. R. A. 213, 51 Am. St. Rep. 174; Ex parte Looper, 61 Tex. Cr. R. 129, 134 S. W. 345, Ann. Cas. 1913B, 32. The cases above cited hold to the theory that a. punishment for contempt is quasi criminal; that its object and purpose is not to punish for a public offense, but to compel obedience and respect for the orders of the court. So where the statute makes the violation of a court order punishable by a fine or imprisonment it is of course criminal in its nature, but the object and purpose of this statutory punishment remains the same; that is, to compel obedience and respect for the orders of the court. Notwithstanding the fact that an act which is a violation of a court order under this or other statutes may also be a *189 crime under the general penal law, it is a different crime, punishable for a different purpose.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1924 OK CR 49, 223 P. 401, 26 Okla. Crim. 184, 1924 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 50, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ivey-v-state-oklacrimapp-1924.