State v. Jordan
This text of 34 N.W. 285 (State v. Jordan) 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.
Opinion
I. Defendant, in her answer, admits that she owns the property described in the petition, but denies that a nuisance was maintained in it. The evidence presented in the record before us sufficiently establishes the allegations of the petition. We cannot, therefore, interfere with the decree on the ground that the evidence fails to establish it.
_._. amfofstaí-’ ute. III. It is insisted that the statute is in conflict with the constitution of the United States, for the reason that it denies defendant the right of trial by jury, deprives her of property without due process of law, and authorizes punishment without indictment by a grand jury. It is sufficient to say, in reply to these objections, that the action is brought in chancery to restrain the maintenance of a nuisance, — a subject of equitable cognizance before the statute was enacted, — and that the right to trial by jury in chancery cases is not secured by any constitutional provision. If defendant should, through the exercise of the power of chancery in abating the nuisance which she maintained, be deprived of property, it will be by [379]*379due process of law as administered in the courts of chancery. If defendant be fined and imprisoned in the exercise of the same power for contempt in refusing to obey the mandate of the court, it will not be in violation of the constitutional requirements that punishment shall not be inflicted without indictment by a grand jury. The punishment of contempts, whether -the proceedings therefor be regarded as criminal or civil, may be had without indictment by a grand jury. These familiar doctrines have been recentlyrecognized by this court. See Littleton v. Fritz, 65 Iowa, 488 ; Martin v. Blattner, 68 Id., 286 ; McLane v. Leicht, 69 Id., 401 ; Jordan v. Wapello Circuit Court, Id., 177 ; Manderscheid v. Plymouth District Court, Id., 240.
In our opinion the decree of the circuit court ought to be
Aefiemed.
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34 N.W. 285, 72 Iowa 377, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-jordan-iowa-1887.