Thelsen v. McDavid

34 Fla. 440
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJune 15, 1894
StatusPublished
Cited by52 cases

This text of 34 Fla. 440 (Thelsen v. McDavid) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Thelsen v. McDavid, 34 Fla. 440 (Fla. 1894).

Opinion

Taylor, J.:

Section 1, Article 1, of Chapter 13 of the Code of Ordinances of the municipality of Pensacola, adopted in May, 1889, provides as follows: “It shall be unlawful on Sunday for any merchant or shopkeeper or -other person to keep open store, or dispose of any wares, merchandise, goods or chatties, or sell or barter the same; provided, that in cases of emergency or necessity, they may dispose of the comforts and necessaries of life to customers, without keeping open doors. The foregoing section shall not be held to prohibit selling or keeping open store for the purpose of selling drugs, ice, fresh meats, breads, newspapers and periodicals, fresh vegetables, cigars and tobacco, ice-cream, soda-water, fish and oysters (without exposing the wares in doors or on the side-walk), nor to prohibit [442]*442the selling of meals by restaurant or hotels.” For an alleged violation of this ordinance, by selling lager beer on Sunday, July 1st, 1894, the plaintiff in error was arrested and held in custody by the defendant in error, as city marshal, under a warrant issued by the municipal authorities upon an atlidavit. charging the offense. The plaintiff in emu* sued out a writ of babean corpa n before the Circuit Court, assailing the ordinance, for an infraction of which he had been arrested, urging that said ordinance was invalid, unconstitutional and void. The Circuit Judge, after hearing the cause, rendered judgment refusing to discharge the plaintiff in error, and remanding him to the custody of the defendant in error, the city marshal. From this order he comes here by writ of error.

It is contended for the plaintiff in error that under no circumstances can the legislature constitutionally delegate to a municipality the power to punish by ordinance any act made punishable as a crime or misdemeanor against the State laws, and for which the offender may be informed against or indicted and tried in the State courts; and that the city ordinance in question here is invalid and void because the act it undertakes to punish as an offense against the laws of the municipality, was made a criminal offense and punishable under the State laws, Chapter 3140, approved March 11th, 1879, in force at the time of the adoption of said ordinance. The pertinent provisions of which State law are as follows : “Sec. 2. JSTo merchant or shopkeeper or other person shall keep open store, or dispose of any wares, merchandise, goods or* chattels on the Sabbath day, or sell or barter the same ; provided, that in cases of emergency or necessity they may dispose of the comforts and necessaries-of life to customers without keeping open doors.” [443]*443‘ ‘ Sec. 3. Any violation of this act shall be deemed a misdemeanor, and any person convicted thereof shall be subject to a fine of not less than twenty dollars, and not more than fifty dollars.” (R. S., sec. 2039). The constitutional objection urged against the propriety of the delegation of' such legislative power to municipal governments is that, it subjects the offender to a second jeopardy and punishment for the same offense. Some courts have sustained this view, but the overwhelming weight of the authorities, with which our views accord, support the contrary rule, that there is no impropriety, from a constitutional standpoint, in clothing our municipal governments with legislative power to prohibit and punish by ordinance any act made penal by the State laws, when perpetrated within municipal limits ; and that it is no objection to such an ordinance that it prescribes the same penalties as the State law for the commission or omission of the same act; and that the offender may be tried and punished for the same act under both the ordinance and the State law ; a,nd that a conviction or acquittal under the one is no bar to prosecution under the other; and that it is no objection to the municipal ordinance that the trial thereunder is without a j ury. In avoidance of the theory that such a status of the law subjects the offender to the constitutionally inhibited second jeopardy and punishment for the same offense, the question is assimilated to the dual trials and punishments, the one in the Federal courts, the other in the State tribunals, that follow the same act when it infracts both a State law and congressional legislation. Instead of its resulting in two trials and punishments for the same offense within the contemplation of the constitutional inhibition, it is regarded as two distinct offenses growing out of the-[444]*444same act; the one being a transgression of the State law, the other an infraction of the municipal law. A crime, as defined by Blackstone (4 Bl. Com., 5), being an act committed or omitted, in violation of a public law, either forbidding or commanding it. Within the contemplation of the constitutional inhibition against dual jeopardy for the same offense, our municipal governments are regarded as separate and distinct bodies politic from the government of the State; so that the same act may be a violation of, and consequently a crime against, the laws of both' governments. The criminal aspect of the act consisting of its molation of law. The offense, so far as the municipality is concerned, is complete, independent and distinct when a municipal law is violated, and the punishment follows from a violation of its la/io without reference to the' infraction of the law of any other government. The constitution does not prohibit a second jeopardy for the same act, but forbids the second jeopardy for the same offense. Constitution of 388fi, section 12, Declaration of Rights. Consequenty, if the offender has been once, in the municipal courts, put in jeopardy for the offense involved in the infraction of the municipal law he can not again, by the municipal authorities, be put in jeopardy for the same ; but such jeopardy will not shield him from trial and punishment by the State authorities for the distinct and independent offense, though involving the same act, that grows out of the transgression of the State law. 1 Dillon on Municipal Corporations (4th ed.), sec. 368, and citations ; Cooley’s Const. Lim. (6th ed.), p. 239, and citations ; Horr and Bemis on Mun. Police Ordinances, sec. 89 ; Bishop on Statutory Crimes, secs. 23, 24, and citations ; City of St. Louis vs. Cafferetta, 24 Mo., 94; State vs. Sly, 4 Oregon, 277; Howe vs. Treasurer of [445]*445Plainfield, 37 N. J. L., 145; City of Brooklyn vs. Toynbee, 31 Barb., 282 ; Megowan vs. Commonwealth, 2 Met. (Ky.), 3; Waldo vs. Wallace, 12 Ind., 569; City of Brownville vs. Cook, 4 Neb., 101; Hughes vs. People, 8 Col., 536; Mayor, &c. vs. Allaire, 14 Ala., 400; State vs. Ludwig, 21 Minn., 202 ; State vs. Lee, 29 Minn., 445; McInerney vs. City of Denver, 17 Col., 302; Van Buren vs. Wells, 53 Ark., 368; City of Plattsburg vs. Trimble, 46 Mo. App., 459 ; City of De Soto vs. Brown, 44 Mo. App., 148; Mayor, &c. of Nashville vs. Linck, 12 Lea, 499, S. C. 5 Am. & Eng. Corp., Cas., 392; State vs. Fourcade, 45 La. Ann.,-, 13 South. Rep., 187; Liberman vs. State, 26 Neb., 464 ; State vs. Topeka, 36 Kansas, 76.

The validity of the ordinance is also assailed upon the ground that no sufficient power has been delegated by law to the municipality to enact the same, in view of the fact that the State law specifically prescribes punishment for the same offense. We fully recognizé the rule that a municipality can not by ordinance punish an act. already made penal by the State law, unless it has express or clearly implied legislative authority so to do.

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Bluebook (online)
34 Fla. 440, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thelsen-v-mcdavid-fla-1894.