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State v. Haug

29 L.R.A. 390, 95 Iowa 413
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedOctober 3, 1895
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 29 L.R.A. 390 (State v. Haug) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Haug, 29 L.R.A. 390, 95 Iowa 413 (iowa 1895).

Opinion

Kinne, J.

I. It is not disputed that the defendant in December, 1893, caught several thousand pounds of fish — sunfish, pike, bass, and pickerel — with a seine about four hundred feet long, which was drawn under the ice, in Big Lake, in Allamakee county, Iowa. For this act he was arrested, and brought before the mayor of the city of Lansing, on information filed by the fish commissioner of the state, charging the defendant with illegally seining fish, contrary to the laws of this state. He was convicted, and appealed to the district court. There was a jury trial, and at the close of the evidence the court directed a verdict for the defendant, from which this appeal is prosecuted.

II. There are a number of assignments of error in this case growing out of the rulings of the court upon the introduction of testimony, the refusal to give instructions asked by the state, the action of the court in directing a verdict for the defendant, and in other respects. Nearly all of these, however, in one way or another, relate to, and all are dependent on, the solution of the real question in controversy, viz. whether or not Big Lake is a part of the Mississippi river, within the meaning of the statute which exempts the waters of said river from the operation of the laws of this state prohibiting the seining of fish. To this question only shall we direct our attention.

The statute upon which the information against the defendant is based is found in the Acts of the Twenty-third General Assembly (chapter 34), and is entitled “An act for the protection and preservation of fish,” etc. It is provided by section 2 of the chapter [415]*415that:. “It shall he unlawful for any person to take from any of the waters of the state any fish in any manner except by hook and line; except that it shall be lawful for any person to take minnows for bait with a seine that does not exceed five yards in length. Also that it shall be lawful to take buffalo and suckers by spearing between the first day of November and the first day of March following. * * *” Section 6, under which the information was drawn, reads.: “No person shall place, erect or cause to be placed or erected, in or across any of the rivers, creeks, lakes-, or ponds or any outlets or inlets thereto any trot line, seine, net, weir, trap, dam or other obstruction in such manner as to hinder or obstruct the free passage of fish up, down, or through such water course for the purpose of taking or catching fish unless the same be done under the supervision of the fish commissioner, except minnows as provided in section 2 of this act.” Section 7 of the act prohibits the placing of drugs, dynamite, powder, etc., “in any of the waters of the state,” for the purpose of destroying or catching fish. In section 8 it is provided that any person found guilty of violating sections 6 or 7 of the act shall, upon conviction, be fined not less than twenty-five dollars, nor more than one hundred dollars, and stand committed until such fine is paid. Section 11 of the act provides that “nothing herein contained shall be held to apply to fishing in the Mississippi, the Missouri, or the Big Sioux rivers, nor so much of the Des Moines river as forms the boundary between the states of Missouri and Iowa.” Defendant relies upon the provision of the section last quoted, and claims that Big Lake constitutes a part of the Mississippi river, which is exempted from the operation of the act. It is not questioned that, if Big Lake is not a part of the Mississippi river, within the meaning of the act, then defendant is guilty of having violated the law.

[416]

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Related

State v. Dawson
63 N.W.2d 917 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1954)
Scown v. Czarnecki
264 Ill. 305 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1914)
Little v. Green
123 N.W. 367 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1909)

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Bluebook (online)
29 L.R.A. 390, 95 Iowa 413, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-haug-iowa-1895.