State v. Bertrand

48 So. 302, 122 La. 856, 1909 La. LEXIS 616
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 18, 1909
DocketNo. 17,374
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 48 So. 302 (State v. Bertrand) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Bertrand, 48 So. 302, 122 La. 856, 1909 La. LEXIS 616 (La. 1909).

Opinion

BREAUX, C. J.

The appellant was surety on defendants’ bonds. He seeks to have the judgment rendered against him as surety reversed.

The amount of each of the two bonds is $250.

. The defendants, Eugene Bertrand and Odette Duval, were charged in an affidavit, in the First city criminal court, with felon-iously living in open concubinage, in violation of Act No. 87, p. 105 of 1908, one being a colored man, the other a white woman.

A subpoena was issued on motion of the district attorney, and served on defendants and their surety.

At the time fixed by the court, the defendants failed to appear. Thereafter, in the court in which it was incumbent upon the defendants to appear, the court ordered Joseph Bonomo, surety, who was present in court, to procure the presence of the defendants into court.

This he failed to do, and thereupon the district attorney offered the required evidence to forfeit the bond, which was admitted. Upon this evidence a judgment was rendered (again on motion of the district attorney) against the defendants and their surety in solido for an amount of $250 in each case.

The law under which the defendants were prosecuted was approved on the 1st of July, 1908, and promulgated in the official journal on the 4th of that month. The affidavit was made against the defendants on the 27th day of July, 1908, and the bail bond was furnished the next day.

Counsel for the bondsman in due time presented a motion before the court to set aside the judgment of forfeiture.

The complaint of the surety is, in substance, that the judge originally did not issue a written order to the sheriff to accept the bond.

The second ground of attack of the judgment was that the bond upon which it was based does not state an offense known to the law; and, lastly, the bondsman urged that the law before cited had not been promulgated at the date that the prosecution was instituted by reason that the law was promulgated in the official journal on the 4th of July.

We take up the first point above stated for decision; that is, the want of an order to the sheriff by the court.

The amount of the bond was fixed by the [859]*859court At the time that the bond was executed, the defendants were in charge of the sheriff. It is usual for the court to direct the sheriff to accept the bond. We have no good reason to infer that it was otherwise in this case.

There is a pertinent decision on this point State v. Hendricks, 40 La. Ann. 724, 5 South. 24.

We insert here the pertinent part of the text:

“It is also contended that the bond was not ordered or accepted by the justice of the peace, and that the sheriff accepted the bond without a written order from the magistrate. The minutes of the justice of the peace court show •that the bond was ordered and the amount thereof fixed by the magistrate, and his testimony and that of the sheriff both show that ■the latter was authorized by the justice of the peace to accept the bond. A verbal order to that effect was sufficient, and no authority can be invoked to show that a written order would be necessary to legalize such ■ a bond. But as ¡several of these objections involve only alleged irregularities, the surety is estopped from urging them by the fact, as shown by the sheriff’s return and also by the minutes of the magistrate’s court, that the accused was in actual ■custody when the bond was executed, and that he was thereby released. Having reaped the .advantages and realized the object of the bond, the parties cannot be allowed to avoid its effect or be heard to gainsay the regularity of the proceeding.”

State v. Ansley, 13 La. Ann. 299; State v. Badon, 14 La. Ann. 783; State v. Canady, 16 La. Ann. 141; State v. Nicol, 30 La. Ann. 628. This latter portion of the text relating to the estopped situation in which the surety is placed we will have occasion to refer to again later. The facts bring the case within the terms of another decision in point, viz., Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children v. Moody, 52 La. Ann. 1815, 28 South. 224.

The case of State v. Badon was evidently well considered, and the court quoted approvingly from State v. Ansley, 13 La. Ann. 299, the following:

“We think that, inasmuch as the accused was in the custody of the sheriff or his deputies, it may fairly be inferred that the sheriff and
his deputies (no other persons being mentioned) were intended as the proper persons to take the bond, and that neither the accused nor his sureties, who have put this construction upon the order of the court for the bond, and have secured his discharge upon this construction, can now be permitted to gainsay this conclusion, upon which they have acted.”

The proceedings of the magistrate, the court said, were extremely irregular in an important matter, and yet maintained the forfeiture.

This brings us to a consideration of the second proposition upon which learned counsel insists as ground to justify us in setting aside the judgment. This proposition is that the bond does not describe an offense known to the law.

This proposition of defendant is broad enough as stated in his pleading, and, if sustained by the facts, it would have the effect of striking all the proceedings with nullity.

In passing upon this point, we will state that the defendants were charged with “violating Act No. 87, p. 105, of 1908,” known as the “Concubinage Act.”

In disposing of this complaint, directed by the surety against the judgment of forfeiture, we in the first place refer to the statute which the defendants were charged with having violated. It in terms denounces concubinage between a person of the Caucasian or white race and a person of the negro or black race, and makes it felony, and directs that whoever shall be convicted shall be sentenced to imprisonment, at the discretion of the court, for a term not less than one month or over one year, with or without hard labor.

The statute is plain enough. When the bond was taken to secure the presence of the defendants charged with its violation, it directly included “the accused of different races,” within its terms, for violating the statute by living in open concubinage. The bond could refer to no other concubinage than that charged in the affidavit. It- also is manifest that it relates to the statute it[861]*861self, cited supra, the only statute of the kind upon the statute books.

From that point of view, the surety must have had knowledge of just what he was doing. He does not assert that he had no knowledge when he became party to the bond as surety.

The charge of having violated the statute is equivalent to the charge of having committed an offense known to the law.

A question very similar was considered in State v. Tennant, 30 La. Ann. 852.

The defendants in this last case were indicted for murder. The bond was forfeited. They were placed under bond for shooting with intent to kill. The court held that the validity' of a bail bond is not affected by an indictment for a higher grade of crime than that expressed in the bond. The accused was bound to appear at court to answer to a specific charge, and not to depart without leave of the court.

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Related

State v. Bertrand
49 So. 199 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1909)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
48 So. 302, 122 La. 856, 1909 La. LEXIS 616, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-bertrand-la-1909.