Katz v. Eldridge

118 A. 242, 96 N.J.L. 382, 1921 N.J. Sup. Ct. LEXIS 12
CourtSupreme Court of New Jersey
DecidedNovember 25, 1921
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 118 A. 242 (Katz v. Eldridge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Katz v. Eldridge, 118 A. 242, 96 N.J.L. 382, 1921 N.J. Sup. Ct. LEXIS 12 (N.J. 1921).

Opinion

The opinion of the court was delivered by

MikttukjST, J.

Out of a list of a few hundred causes before us, upon writs of certiorari, involving the legal^ of the procedure, as well as the trial of the prosecutors under the provisions of the so-called “Wan Ness” act, these three causes have been selected by agreement of counsel, as representative types, and, therefore, as presenting most, if not all, the contentions which counsel are desirous of urging, as legal grounds in all the causes, for vacating the processes, in the, first instance, or of setting aside the convictions where trials were had as the cases may require.

The legislature at its latest session enacted chapter 103 of the laws of 1921 (Pamph. L., p. 171) entitled “An act concerning intoxicating liquors, used or to be used for beverage purposes.” The constitutionality of the main feature of this enactment presents the subject-matter of this controversy. At the same session were passed three other acts upon the same general subject, which, under well-recognized canons of statutory construction and interpretation, must be deemed as legislation in pari materia with the controverted enactment, and, therefore, illuminative of its provisions as a concrete expression of the legislative will.

'Chapter 5 (Pamph. L. 1921, p. 21) of the same session re•peals “An act to- prohibit the manufacture, sale or transportation-within the State of New Jersey of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes; defining the term ‘intoxicating liquors’ and providing for the punishment of violations thereof,” approved March 2d, 1920.

Chapter 150 of the session (Pamph. L. 1921, p. 391) is “An act concerning intoxicating liquors used or to be used for non-beverage purposes,” while chapter 216 (Pamph. L. 1921, [385]*385p. 693) amends the last-mentioned enactment. Viewed as a concrete expression of the legislative will, these enactments must be read in pari materia, and come to us under well-settled principles, enveloped in a presumption of constitutionality which requires that a construction be accorded to any of them which will support it if possible as a valid exercise of legislative power rather than a construction which will defeat and annul the expressed legislative will. Dixon v. Russell, 58 N. J. L. 296; State v. DeLorenzo, 81 Id. 613.

Nor are we at all concerned with the wisdom and the general policy of this enactment, those features of legislation under our constitutional divisions of power being left entirely 1o the judgment of the legislature as the representatives of the popular will. Bigelow v. Old Dominion Mining Co., 74 N. J. Eq. 457.

The prosecutors are before us upon writs of certiorari intended to review the legality of certain provisions of the act known as chapter 103, as well as the validity of its title and its constitutionality.

In its thirty-fourth section the act provides that upon complaint before a magistrate of the violation of one or more of the provisions of the act, it shall be the duty of such magistrate and power is. conferred upon him to issue his warrant for the arre°t of such person and “summarily without á jury and without any pleadings to. try the person so arrested and brought before him and to determine and adjudge bis guilt or innocence.”

The forty-fourth section. adjudges any person thus found guiltv “to be a disorderly person,” who, under the forty-fifth section, “shall be sentenced * * to be confifted in the workhouse, penitentiary or common jail of the county * * * for a period not to exceed six months, or to pay a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars, or both, in the discretion of such magistrate; and also, to pay the costs.”

The basic challenge directed against this legislation is that the act “expressly authorizes a trial hv the magistrate without a jury,” and, therefore, it militates against sections 7 and 8 of article 1 of the state constitution, which provide that [386]*386“the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate,” and that “in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to a speedy and public tidal by an impartial jury.”

The rationale of the argument presented in this contention is summarized in the brief of counsel thus: “The manufacture, transportation, sale, &c., of intoxicating liquor for beverage purposes in violation of the constitution of the United States cannot be made punishable by imprisonment for six months in the county jail, workhouse or penitentiary by the courts of New Jersey without a trial by jury.”

The fallacy of this contention is, that it assumes that the legislation in question was enacted by the legislature of the state in pursuance of an acquired or delegated power from the federal government, under the provisions of the eighteenth amendment to the federal constitution. This fallacy contains within itself the further gratuitous assumption that since that amendment the power to enact prohibitory laws conceded to> the federal government by the states, the latter may not legislate upon the subject in any manner inharmonious with the legislation of the federal congress; and that because the legislation by congress, known as the “Volstead act,” characterizes violations of the provisions of that act as a “crime,” any offence created by the state legislature under the general police power of the state, cannot deal with the subject-matter of the amendment upon a plane or theory substantially different from that adopted by congress. This conception of the extirpation pro tanto of the police power of the state is contrary to settled fundamental principles, adopted at the formative stage of constitutional construction, when it was held that the feder&l government ¡possessed only such powers as were expressly or impliedly conceded by the states, and that the latter, together with the people, retained all the powers incident to sovereignty to be employed as may be deemed expedient in the public interest. 10th Amend. Fed. Con.; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1.

Anclj so, it was held that no power is conferred upon congress to establish mere police regulations within any state. United States v. DeWitt, 9 Wall. 41.

[387]*387To tlie same effect it was declared that “the states did not intend by adopting the fourteenth amendment to- impose restraints upon the exercise of their powers for 1 he protection of the safety, health or morals of the community.” Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 205.

And it was held, in furtherance of the same basic principle. that the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution did not take from the states, the police power reserved to them at the time of the adoption of the federal constitution. Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36.

The only limitation imposed upon the states by a constitutional concession of this nature is that under their reserved powei's they shall not enact legislation conflicting with the federal amendment, or conflicting with legislation enacted by congress in virtue of the constitutional power thus conceded. Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U. S. 257; Cooley Const. Lim. 24.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
118 A. 242, 96 N.J.L. 382, 1921 N.J. Sup. Ct. LEXIS 12, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/katz-v-eldridge-nj-1921.