State v. Purcell

228 P. 796, 39 Idaho 642, 1924 Ida. LEXIS 68
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 15, 1924
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 228 P. 796 (State v. Purcell) 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. Purcell, 228 P. 796, 39 Idaho 642, 1924 Ida. LEXIS 68 (Idaho 1924).

Opinions

*645 WILLIAM A. LEE, J.

Appellant was charged in the district court, for Blaine county, with a felony, the charging part of the information being:

“That the said Walter Purcell on the 1st day of June, 1923, in the county of Blaine, state of Idaho, then and there being, did wilfully, unlawfully, and feloniously then and there live with, and for a long time previous thereto, had been living with, one Madge Barber, she, the said Madge Barber, being then and there a woman of bad repute.”

The cause was tried by the court with a jury and upon a verdict of guilty appellant was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than two nor more than twenty years, from which judgment this appeal is taken upon fifteen enumerated errors.

The prosecution is based upon the wording of the statute as it appears in C. S., sec. 8276, which is the same as sec. 6779 of the Compiled Laws as revised by the code commissioner and reported to the fifteenth session of the legislature. The state contends that C. S., sec. 8276, correctly states the law, and the learned trial judge instructed the jury in the language of this section. The original act *646 passed by the legislature, Sess. Laws 1911, chap. 205, p. 673, commonly known as the White Slave Act, is entitled:

“An Act to prevent the importation into this staite or the exportation from this state of women and girls for immoral purposes; prohibiting the keeping, maintaining, controlling, supporting or harboring of any woman or girl for immoral purposes, and prescribing the punishment therefor.”

¡Section 9 of the act reads:

“.See. 9. Any person who shall live with, in whole or in part, upon the earnings of a common prostitute or woman of bad repute, shall be guilty of a felony and, on conviction thereof, shall be punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of not less than one nor more than twenty years.”

This section, as modified by the code commissioner, reads:

“Sec. 8276. Pimping defined. Any person who shall live with, or depend in whole or in part, upon the earnings of a common prostitute or woman of bad repute, shall be guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of not less than one nor more than 20 years.”

It differs from the law as enacted by the legislature, in two particulars: first, the words “Pimping defined” were added-by the commissioner; and secondly, the words “or depend” were interpolated into the body of the section by the commissioner.

Counsel for appellant have filed a supplemental brief wherein they contend that the changes made by the commissioner are not a part of the law and materially change its meaning to the prejudice of appellant. The state replies, and admits that the meaning of the original section 9 as found in Sess. Laws 1911, chap. 205, is changed by the adoption of the Compiled Laws. We will first consider the question presented by these supplemental briefs.

In Libby v. Pelham, 30 Ida. 614, 166 Pac. 575, the court had under consideration the construction to be given secs. 258 and 260 of the Revised Statutes of 1887 and the Revised *647 Codes of 1909. The law as originally enacted in 1875 contained the words “ or to the use and benefit” before the words “of any person or persons.” In the Revised Statutes of 1887 and the Revised Codes of 1909 the words “or to the use and benefit” were omitted. The court directed attention to section 5 of the Revised Statutes, which reads:

“The provisions of these Revised Statutes, so far as they are substantially the same as existing statutes, must be construed as continuations thereof, and not as new enactments. ’ ’ This provision was carried forward as section 5 of the Revised Codes of 1909. The court held that notwithstanding these omissions the statute must be construed and applied as it was originally enacted in 1875. Section 5 as it appears in the Revised Statutes of 1887 and in the Revised Codes of 1909 is continued in force in the compilations that have since been made, being section 500:5 of the Compiled Laws of 1919, which is the code commissioner’s report, and as C. S., sec. 9445, which is the last revision of the statute law of this state. The rule of law announced in the Libby v. Pelham case, therefore, is to the effect that where there is a conflict between an act as it was passed by the legislature and as it appears in a subsequent revision or codification of the entire body of the' law, the act as originally passed will prevail.

Article 3, section 16, of the constitution provides:

“See. 16. Unity of subject and title. 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 embraced in an act which shall not be expressed in the title, such act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be embraced in the title.”

In Archbold v. Huntington, 34 Ida. 558, 201 Pac. 1041, the constitutionality of C. S., sec. 8684, was challenged on the ground that it had never been adopted in the manner required by this provision of the constitution. The court said that the statutory provision in question having been passed by the territorial legislature prior to the adoption of the constitution, the provision did not apply since all *648 territorial laws were continued in force by the constitution itself.

Counsel for respondent very earnestly contend that notwithstanding the constitutional provision above quoted, there is much authority in support of the contention that the legislature may adopt in a single bill an entire code or revision of all the statute law without violating this provision. This question was exhaustively considered in Lewis v. Dunne, 134 Cal. 291, 86 Am. St. 257, 66 Pac. 478, 55 L. R. A. 833, wherein, inter alia, it is said:

“We cannot agree with the contention of some of respondent’s counsel — apparently to some extent countenanced by a few authorities — that the provision of the constitution in question can be entirely avoided by the simple device of putting into the title of an act words which denote a subject ‘broad’ enough to cover everything. Under that view the title ‘An Act Concerning the Laws of the State’ would be good, and the convention and people who framed and adopted the Constitution would be convicted of the folly of elaborately constructing a grave constitutional limitation of legislative power upon a most important subject, which the legislature could at once circumvent by a mere verbal trick. The word ‘subject’ is used in the Constitution in its ordinary sense; and when it says that an act shall embrace but ‘one subject’ it necessarily implies — what everybody knows — that there are numerous subjects of legislation, and declares that only one of these subjects shall be embraced in any one act.”

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Bluebook (online)
228 P. 796, 39 Idaho 642, 1924 Ida. LEXIS 68, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-purcell-idaho-1924.