State v. Martinez

250 P. 239, 43 Idaho 180, 1926 Ida. LEXIS 20
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 23, 1926
StatusPublished
Cited by52 cases

This text of 250 P. 239 (State v. Martinez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Martinez, 250 P. 239, 43 Idaho 180, 1926 Ida. LEXIS 20 (Idaho 1926).

Opinion

*185 TAYLOR, J.

Appellant was convicted upon an information charging the crime of bigamy, alleged to have been committed by marrying one Mary G. Prosper in Coeur d’Alene on October 1, 1923, he having a wife, one Hazel Butler, whom he married in Spokane, Washington, on May 19, 1923, who was living and undivorced at the time of the second marriage. This appeal is from the judgment and an order denying a motion for a new trial.

Appellant’s first assignment of error is:

“That the verdict of the jury is contrary to the law in this: That the crime of bigamy is unknown to the law' of the State of Idaho, and that, if any crime has been proven in this ease, it is the crime of polygamy only.”

In arriving at the legislative intent as to an act alleged to have impliedly repealed or superseded another or other statutes, the nature of the several acts involved, including their respective titles, the history of such enactments, the state of the law when the acts were passed, and the history of the times, as well as the objects and purposes sought to be attained, are proper matters for consideration. (People v. Gibson, 53 Colo. 231, Ann. Cas. 1914B, 138, 125 Pac. 531.)

“The words of a statute must be taken in the sense in which they were understood at the time when the statute was enacted.” (25 R. C. L., p. 959, “Statutes,” sec. 215.)

The first statute defining bigamy as a crime, and providing a punishment therefor, was enacted during the first session of the territorial legislature of 1863-64, and reads in part as follows:

*186 “Bigamy consists in having two wives, or two husbands, at one and the same time, knowing that the former husband or wife is still alive.” (Idaho Laws, 1st Session, p. 465.)

This provision was re-enacted in 1875 (Idaho Laws, 8th Session, p. 352). The Revised Statutes of 1887, sec. 6805, defined bigamy as follows:

“Every person having a husband or wife living, who marries any other person, .... is guilty of bigamy.”

As a part of the same chapter, Revised Statutes, sec. 6808, provided:

“Every person who knowingly and wilfully marries the husband or wife of another, in any case in which such husband or wife would be punishable under the provisions of this chapter, is punishable by fine not less than two thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in the Territorial prison not exceeding three years.”

The only subject of the cross-reference therein could have been the offense defined as bigamy by Rev. Stats., sec. 6805. Rev. Stats., sec. 6808, had its origin in substance in Idalio Laws, 1st Session, p. 466, sec. 128. This likewise was reenacted in 1875 (Idaho Laws, 8th Session, p. 353).

Both bigamy and polygamy were known to the constitution (art. 1, sec. 4; art. 6, sec. 3), and bigamy was defined by statute as a crime, although polygamy was not. By an act of the legislature in 1905 entitled, “An act defining the crime of polygamy and providing punishment therefor” (Sess. Laws 1905, p. 293; now C. S., sec. 8283), it is provided:

“Every person who has a husband or wife living who hereafter marries another, whether married or single, and any man who hereafter simultaneously, or on the same day, marries more than one woman, is guilty of polygamy . . . . ”

Unless this act of 1905 by implication repealed Rev. Stats., see. 6805, it is still in effect, for as we shall show, it was not otherwise repealed by either Revised Codes, 1909, or Compiled Laws, 1919, although not carried forward in either of those codifications.

*187 The rule applicable in this instance is well expressed in Ruling Case Law:

“Repeals by implication are not favored, and will not be indulged if there is any other reasonable construction.....
“The rule of construction in respect to the repeal of statutes by implication is, that the earlier act remains in force, unless the two are manifestly inconsistent with and repugnant to each other, or unless in the later act express notice is taken of the former, plainly indicating an intention to abrogate it.....
“To effect an implied repeal of one statute by another they must both relate to the same subject and have the same object or purpose. Where there is a difference in the whole purview of two statutes apparently relating to the same subject, the former is not repealed. Where the evils which an act is designed to remedy are different from those for which a prior act provides the prior act is not repealed.” (25 R. C. L., pp. 918-922, “Statutes,” secs. 169-171. See, also, In re Mitchell, 121 Cal. 384, 52 Pac. 799; Malone v. Bosch, 104 Cal. 680, 38 Pac. 516.)

The word “bigamy” is defined by Sir James A. H. Murray’s English Dictionary as follows:

“Marriage with a second wife or husband during the lifetime of the first; the crime of having two wives or husbands at once.....
“Eccl. Law. Re-marriage after the death of a first wife (or husband); marriage of, or with, a widow (or widower). Obs. exc. Hist.”

The same authority defines “polygamy” as follows:

“Marriage with several, or more than one, at once; plurality of spouses; the practice or custom according to which one man has several wives (distinctively called polygyny), or one woman several husbands (polyandry), at the same time. Most commonly used of the former.”

It will be observed that one having no husband or wife could not, by marrying, be guilty of bigamy as defined, although punishable for an unnamed crime under Rev. Stats., sec. 6808, to wit: knowingly and wilfully marrying *188 a bigamist. However, by the act of 1905 a man can be punished, as for the crime of polygamy, for marrying plural wives simultaneously or upon the same day, while the offense of the woman, if such were committed, of marrying two men simultaneously or upon the same day, is not defined as polygamy. We thus find the intention of the legislature, in the adoption of the act of 1905, was to provide punishment for that which, in the minds of the legislature, was polygamy — the polygamous marriage of one man with a plurality of wives — thus indicating that polygamy, as known and understood, was not that which had been so long defined as bigamy.

It must be noticed that a repeal of Rev. Stats., sec. 6805, would of necessity make ineffective Rev. Stats., sec. 6808, which, by its terms, makes the person ' other than the bigamist knowingly and wilfully contracting such marriage guilty of an offense visited with equal punishment. It is doubtful if incorporating certain elements of bigamy in the definition of polygamy by the act of 1905 would carry with it a plain or any intention to continue the application of the provisions of Rev. Stats., sec.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
250 P. 239, 43 Idaho 180, 1926 Ida. LEXIS 20, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-martinez-idaho-1926.