Skaggs v. State

207 P. 877, 24 Ariz. 191, 1922 Ariz. LEXIS 200
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedJune 28, 1922
DocketCriminal No. 532
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 207 P. 877 (Skaggs v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Skaggs v. State, 207 P. 877, 24 Ariz. 191, 1922 Ariz. LEXIS 200 (Ark. 1922).

Opinion

FLANIGAN, J.

In proceedings brought under the provisions of title 10, part 1 (sections 369 to 381, inclusive), of the Penal Code, entitled “Bastards,” the appellant was adjudged guilty of being the father of the unborn child of an unmarried woman, and an order was accordingly made charging him with the maintenance of such child, if it should be born, and requiring him to give bond to secure his performance of such judgment and order. Thereafter the appellant moved for a new trial and an arrest of judgment, and from the orders denying said motions, and the judgment and order of the court charging him with the maintenance of the child, he gave notice of appeal to this court.

The appellant has made and argued many assignments of error, including an assignment that the judgment and order of maintenance appealed from are void because of the unconstitutionality of the Bastardy Law for conflict with section 13, part 2, article 4, of the Constitution. The argument on that assignment presented in the briefs for the appellant [193]*193and the state will be noticed in connection with the determinative question of whether any appeal lies to this court from such judgment and order.

Our jurisdiction to consider this case on appeal must he based upon the authority of some statutory provision. Mohave County v. Stephens, 17 Ariz. 165, 149 Pac. 670.

No right of appeal is conferred by the provisions of chapter 1, title 11, part 2, of the Penal Code (sections 1151 to 1163, inclusive), because under the express terms of the Bastardy Law prosecution thereunder proceeds upon the complaint originally filed by the woman complainant in the justice court (see the statute and State v. Brathovde, 81 Minn. 501, 84 N. W. 340); and the Code (section 1151) provides for an appeal only in criminal cases prosecuted by indictment or information.

Assuming that, under the provisions of paragraphs 1227, 1228 of the Civil Code, an appeal would lie from such judgment or order as rendered in a civil action or proceeding (paragraph 1226), the questions are directly presented whether the bastardy statute provides for a civil action or proceeding, and whether, if it so provides, it is constitutional under the terms of section 13, part 2, article 4, of the Constitution.

Upon the assumption that the case is properly in this court on appeal, the parties have presented the constitutional question just referred to, and we shall advert to such of the arguments offered on that head as will aid in the clear development of the matters necessary to the decision of the determinative question of our jurisdiction.

Section 13, part 2, article 4, of the Constitution reads as follows:

“Every act shall embrace but one subject and matters properly connected therewith, which subject shall be expressed in the title; but if any subject shall be [194]*194embraced in an act which shall not be expressed in the title, snch act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be embraced in the title.”

The contention is that the title under which the Penal Code was enacted, being “An act to establish a Penal Code,” of which Code the Bastardy Act is a part, is not sufficiently comprehensive to embrace the law, inasmuch as proceedings under it must be regarded as civil in character, so that the' law can constitutionally have no place in the Penal Code.

The bastardy statute was adopted from the Revised Laws of Minnesota 1905, being chapter 17 of such laws (sections 1567 to 1579, inclusive), and for all practical purposes is a substantial rescript of such chapter. This Minnesota act has been on the statute-books of that state since at least the year 1866, appearing in the Revision of that year and of 1878 as chapter 17, and has been many times construed by the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under these decisions there is no doubt that the proceedings authorized by this statute are to be considered civil in nature, and governed by the rules of procedure applicable to civil actions.

In State v. Becht, 23 Minn. 1, it is said:

“Our statute upon the subject of bastardy seems to have been borrowed from the state of Wisconsin. The supreme court of that state, in referring to proceedings under this and similar statutes, correctly say: ‘They are not strictly of a criminal character, though they have always been considered as quasi-criminal, and the view undoubtedly taken of them by courts in modern times is that they are neither wholly civil nor wholly criminal, but have many of the features and incidents of both.’ State v. Jager, 19 Wis. 235, and cases there cited. Statutes of this character are in the nature of police regulations, having, as their principal object and purpose, the enforcement, upon the putative father of a bastard [195]*195child, of the moral and natural duty resting upon him to furnish it adequate support and maintenance, and to indemnify the community against its becoming a public charge and burden. Hawes v. Cooksey, 13 Ohio, 242; Musser v. Stewart, 21 Ohio St. 353; Lower v. Wallick, 25 Ind. 68, followed and approved in Ex parte Teague, 41 Ind. 278. The infliction, upon the father, of a punishment for the act of begetting a bastard child, as for a criminal offense, is not the purpose of our statute, nor is such its effect. It is rather against the consequences of the act, both as respects the child and the public, that its provisions are directed and intended to operate.”

It has accordingly been held by the Minnesota court that in bastardy proceedings proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not required in order to convict the defendant, but merely proof by a preponderance of the evidence; that the testimony of the complainant, the mother, need not be corroborated by other evidence (State v. Nichols, 29 Minn. 357, 13 N. W. 153); that the county attorney in his argument to the jury is at liberty to comment upon the omission of the defendant to be sworn in his own behalf. (State v. Snure, 29 Minn. 132, 12 N. W. 347); that the oath prescribed for the jury in civil cases is the proper one in such proceedings (State v. Worthingham, 23 Minn. 528); that an appeal from the district court in bastardy proceedings is to be effected in the same manner as an appeal in civil actions (State v. Klitzke, 46 Minn. 343, 49 N. W. 54); and that the sufficiency of the complaint in such actions is to be determined by the rules applicable to civil causes (State v. Brathovde, 81 Minn. 501, 84 N. W. 340). See, also, to the same effect generally the cases of State v. Hausewedell, 94 Minn. 177, 102 N. W. 204; McKittrick v. Cahoon, 89 Minn. 383, 99 Am. St. Rep. 606, 62 L. R. A. 757, 95 N. W. 223; State v. Nestaval, 72 Minn. 415, 75 N. W. 725; State v. Wenz, 41 Minn. 196, [196]*19642 N. W. 933; State v. Eichmiller, 35 Minn. 240, 28 N. W. 503.

The construction of the act so made by the Minnesota court was well settled at the time of the enactment of our Penal Code, and as, under the decisions of this court, the legislature of this state by adopting the law adopted also the well-settled construction placed upon it by the courts of the state from which the law was taken (see Territory v. Delinquent Tax List, 3 Ariz. 117, 21 Pac. 768; Cheda v. Skinner, 6 Ariz.

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Bluebook (online)
207 P. 877, 24 Ariz. 191, 1922 Ariz. LEXIS 200, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/skaggs-v-state-ariz-1922.