Newton v. State

375 So. 2d 1245
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedJune 26, 1979
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 375 So. 2d 1245 (Newton v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Newton v. State, 375 So. 2d 1245 (Ala. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

375 So.2d 1245 (1979)

Stephen Eugene NEWTON, alias
v.
STATE.

6 Div. 897.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

May 1, 1979.
On Rehearing June 26, 1979.
Rehearing Denied August 21, 1979.

*1246 Joel R. Chandler, Tuscaloosa, for appellant.

Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and Karen Neal Daniel, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State, appellee.

LEIGH M. CLARK, Retired Circuit Judge.

Appellant-defendant pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging him with the possession of marijuana and expressly waived a trial by jury. He was found guilty, sentenced by the court to imprisonment for eight years, and fined one thousand dollars.

All questions raised on appeal center upon the issue of whether a valid warrant was issued for a search that resulted in the seizure of marijuana in the possession of defendant.

The position of appellant is largely premised upon the contention that a provision of Act No. 551, Acts of Alabama 1977, relative to the powers of district court magistrates, is invalid. Act No. 551 purports to amend the law (in application to Tuscaloosa County), as found in Ala.Code 1975, § 12-17-251(c)(1):

"The powers of a magistrate shall be limited to:
"Issuance of arrest warrants and, where such magistrate is licensed to practice law in Alabama, search warrants;"

The change made in the Code sub-section was to provide that as to Tuscaloosa County,

"any person who was serving as a full-time magistrate, ex-officio judge, or assistant ex-officio judge of any county court of the State, six months prior to the effective date of the implementation of this Act by the creation of a District Court in Tuscaloosa County, and is continuing to serve as a magistrate of a District Court, may issue arrest warrants and search warrants."

The official who issued the search warrant in the case now under review was not an attorney. He was a magistrate of the District Court of Tuscaloosa County. Since 1972 he was continuously either an ex-officio judge of the Tuscaloosa County Court or magistrate of a Tuscaloosa County District Court. He fully met the requirements of a magistrate empowered to issue search warrants under the provisions of said Act No. 551.

Appellant argues here, as he did in the trial court, that Act No. 551 is unconstitutional in that it is violative of the equal protection guaranty of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

It is not for this Court to take sides in any debate as to the relative merits between the law in Tuscaloosa County, which will permit experienced magistrates, whether licensed attorneys or not, to issue search warrants, and the law in other counties in the state that requires that magistrates who issue search warrants be licensed attorneys. We have found no authority, and we have been cited none, to the effect that people whose "persons, houses, papers, and [or] effects" have been, or will be, searched in accordance with a warrant issued by those empowered to issue search warrants in Tuscaloosa County would be denied protection of the laws equally with those whose persons, etc., are searched in other counties of the state pursuant to warrants of magistrates empowered to issue the same under Code 1975, § 12-17-251(c)(1).

Even though Act No. 551 is not offensive to the equal protection guaranty of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the search in this case cannot be legally justified if made pursuant to a warrant of an official who did not have legal authority to issue a search warrant. Stephens v. State, 55 Ala.App. 391, 316 So.2d 221, cert. denied, 294 Ala.App. 771 (1975), 316 So.2d 223.

*1247 In Stephens, it was held that the warrant issued was invalid by reason of its being issued by an official purportedly authorized to issue search warrants by a local act enacted under the guise of a general act with local application, but which had not been published as required of local laws by § 106, Constitution of Alabama of 1901.

Appellant does not claim that there was any violation of § 106 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901. He says, however, that the Act was enacted in violation of § 105, Constitution of Alabama of 1901, as follows:

"No special, private, or local law, except a law fixing the time of holding courts, shall be enacted in any case which is provided for by a general law, or when the relief sought can be given by any court of this state; and the courts, and not the legislature, shall judge as to whether the matter of said law is provided for by a general law, and as to whether the relief sought can be given by any court; nor shall the legislature indirectly enact any such special, private, or local law by the partial repeal of a general law."

In support of this contention appellant relies exclusively upon Peddycoart et al. v. City of Birmingham, Ala., 354 So.2d 808 (1978), in which the Supreme Court, per Justice Beatty, sets forth governing principles as to the question of the compliance of a statute with § 105, which principles, according to appellant, show that Act No. 551 violated some of the provisions of § 105 of the Alabama Constitution.

As Act No. 551 was enacted and approved prior to the decision in Peddycoart, supra, we cannot find that said Act violated Section 105 of the Alabama Constitution, for it was distinctly held therein that the principles stated therein and here relied upon by appellant were of prospective application only. Speaking directly to the point, the Court said:

". . . Henceforth when at its enactment legislation is local in its application, it will be a local act and subject to all of the constitutional qualifications applicable to it. With regard to legislation heretofore enacted, the validity of which is challenged, this Court will apply the rules which it has heretofore applied in similar cases."

Appellant says also that there is a conflict between Act No. 551 and Rule 18 II(A)(3)(a), Alabama Rules of Judicial Administration, as follows:

"... The powers of a district court magistrate shall be limited to:

"(a) Issuance of arrest warrants, .. and, where such magistrate is licensed to practice law in Alabama, issuance of search warrants; ..."

In this contention appellant overlooks the first paragraph of Rule 18, as follows:

"I. Administrative Agency Established. —
"There is hereby established an administrative agency within the State of Alabama to be known as the `Magistrates Agency,' which shall be composed of the persons and classes of persons hereinafter described. The persons and classes of persons who constitute the magistrates agency herein created shall serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority, except as otherwise provided herein, and shall exercise the powers and authority granted by this rule, other applicable rules and as provided by law (emphasis supplied)."

To hold that the Legislature of Alabama is not empowered to pass such an act as Act No. 551 is to ignore § 6.01(b) of the new Judicial Article (Constitutional Amendment No. 328), which provides:

"The legislature may create judicial officers with authority to issue warrants and may vest in administrative agencies established by law such judicial powers as may be reasonably necessary as an incident to the accomplishment of the purposes for which the agencies are created."

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375 So. 2d 1245, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/newton-v-state-alacrimapp-1979.