Case ID: ky_75/html/0727-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "CHIEF JUSTICE LINDSAY", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Case 56 — INDICTMENT
    Feb. 1.
    McNeil v. Commonwealth.
    APPEAL FROM JEFFERSON CIRCUIT COURT.
    1. “An act regulating the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial District,” approved Feb. 23, 1876 — Jefferson County composing the Ninth Judicial District — -is constitutional so far as it relates to the jurisdiction of the Jefferson Circuit Court.
    2. Jefferson Circuit Court has jurisdiction under act of Feb. 23, 1876, of misdemeanors committed in the city of Louisville.
    Construing section 1, with the proviso of section 9, of said, act, the Jefferson Circuit Court has, from Sept. 1, 1876, to Jan. 1, 1878, original jurisdiction, concurrent with the Louisville City Court, of indictable misdemeanors committed within the city, and, after January 1, 1878, will have exclusive original jurisdiction of such offenses.
    3. An act presented to the governor more than ten days before the adjournment of the general assembly (Sundays excepted), and not approved or returned, with his objections, to the house in which it originated, becomes a law at the expiration of the ten days.
    4. When the general assembly has extended its session to a fixed DAY heyond the constitutional term of sixty days by the vote of two thirds of all the members elected to each house, the session may he extended beyond the day so fixed hy the vote of a majority of a quorum of each house, although it was declared in the first resolution extending the session that it should not he extended beyond the day so fixed without the vote of two thirds of all the members elected to each house.
    The Louisville City Court had original exclusive jurisdiction of all indictable misdemeanors committed in the city.
    “An act regulating the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial District,” approved Feb. 23, 1876, conferred jurisdiction upon the Jefferson Circuit Court over indictable misdemeanors committed within said city, etc., as set forth in the act, which is partly copied in the opinion of the court herein.
    In September, 1876, appellant was indicted in the Jefferson Circuit Court for a misdemeanor committed in said city; and having heen tried and adjudged to pay a fine, etc., in said court, it is contended, on his appeal herein, that the Jefferson Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the offense charged in the indictment.
    The other facts are sufficiently set forth in the argument of counsel and the opinion of the court.
    D. W. ARMSTRONG for appellant.
    
      First. The “act regulating the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the Ninth Judicial District,” approved February 23, 1876, is unconstitutional.
    1. The object of the act is not expressed in the title.
    There is no such legal entity or being in this state as the circuit court of or for a judicial district. The constitution (art. 4, sec. 16) declares that a circuit court shall be established in each county, not in each district.
    
    2. The act relates to more than one subject.
    3. The act is suspended on the act to establish the Seventeenth Judicial District.
    All acts passed at the same session constitute but one law, and should be so construed. (Peyton v. Moseley, 3 Mon. 77; City of Henderson v. Lambert, 8 Bush, 607.)
    
      Second. The act establishing the Seventeenth Judicial District, to be composed of the counties of Bullitt, Spencer, Shelby, Oldham, Trimble, and Anderson, the first four of which had been previously included in the Ninth District, leaving the Ninth to be composed of Jefferson County alone, was not approved by the governor, and did not become a law without his approval, because the session of the legislature was not constitutionally extended beyond ten days after said act was passed by the two houses and sent to the governor for his approval.
    That an act was unconstitutionally passed may be shown by the journals of the two houses. (Cooley’s Con. Lim., p. 135.)
    The general assembly convened Dec. 31, 1875; its constitutional session of sixty days, which expired Feb. 28, 1876, was extended by the following, which was approved Feb. 25, 1876:
    
      “Fesolved by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, That the session of this general assembly be extended beyond sixty days to which it is limited by the constitution; but such extension shall not be for a greater length of time than twenty days; and we hereby pledge ourselves, one to the other, that no further extension shall be had beyond the time herein provided for, except a majority of two thirds of all the members elected to each branch of the general assembly shall concur therein.”
    
      The session, as thus extended, would have expired Saturday, March 18th. On March 15th the following was offered in the house of representatives :
    
      “Resolved by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, That this session be extended till nine o’clock P. M. of Monday, March 20th, at which time it will adjourn sine die.”
    
    This resolution was passed by the house of representatives by a vote of forty-six to thirty-eight (House Journal, pp. 1253, 1254), and on the 17th by the senate by a vote of twenty-three to twelve.
    
    On March 20th the session was prolonged until midnight of that day by a vote of fifteen to six in the senate (Senate Journal, p. 1065) and forty-one to thirty-one in the house.
    It required the vote of two thirds of one hundred members elected to the house and two thirds of thirty-eight members elected to the senate to constitutionally extend or continue the session beyond the twenty days fixed by the resolution of February 25th, and therefore as the two subsequent resolutions did not receive the required two-thirds vote in each house, they were not constitutionally passed, and the session was constitutionally terminated on the 18th of March.
    As the act establishing the Seventeenth Judicial District was sent to the governor March 8th, and the session was constitutionally ended March 18th, 1876, the session did not constitutionally continue ten days (Sundays excepted) after the bill was sent to the governor, and therefore it did not become a law without his signature.
    As the session ended constitutionally within ten days (Sundays excepted) after the bill was sent to the governor, and as the governor did not return it with his approval or with his objections before the session ended, it did not and could not become a law without his approval until the third day of the next session of the general assembly, and not then unless the governer fails to send it back to the house in which it originated “ within three days after their next meeting,” as provided in the constitution, sec. 22, art. 3.
    In computing the time within which the governor must return a bill, the day on which it is presented to him must be excluded. (Bishop’s Stat. Crimes, sec. 109; Cush. L. & P. Leg. Assemblies, sec. 2379; The People v. Hatch, 38 111. 9; Iron Company v. Haight, 39 Cal. 541; Cooley’s Con. Lim. 153; Batman v. Megowan, 1 Met. 544; Walter v. Kirk, 14 111. 55.)
    The case of Speed & Worthington v. Crawford (3 Met. 207), deciding that, when a session of the general assembly has been extended beyond sixty days by a vote of two thirds of all the members elected to each house, it may then be prolonged indefinitely by a majority of a quorum, if not dictum, should not be extended or held to sustain the constitutionality of the last two extensions of the session, as above set forth.
    
      
      Third. As to the construction of the act of Feb. 23, 1876, and the proviso to section 9 thereof, counsel cited Bish. Stat. Or., see. 82; 1 Met. 173; 2 Met. 76; 59 N. Y. 59.
    B. W: DUKE, commonwealth’s attorney for the ninth judicial DISTRICT, FOR APPELLEE.
    
      First. Any matter set forth in an act which sustains a necessary and proper connection with the subject thereof may be regarded as part of the subject. (Smith v. Commonwealth & Cochran, 8 Bush, 108; O’Bannon v. L., C. & L. R. R. Co., 8 Bush, 348.)
    
      Second. There is no incompatibility between the act of Feb. 23,1876, and the act establishing the Seventeenth Judicial District. (4 J. J. Mar. 474.)
   CHIEF JUSTICE LINDSAY

delivered the opinion of the court.

The appellant was indicted in the Jefferson Circuit Court for the offense of setting up, exhibiting, and keeping a faro bank. The indictment was returned on the 18th day of September, 1876. Upon trial he was convicted and adjudged to pay a fine of $500 and to suffer imprisonment in the county jail for and during the period of six months. His motion for a new trial, as well as his motion in arrest of judgment, was overruled. He appeals to this court, and relies for a reversal upon the single ground that the Jefferson Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the offense with which he was charged.

Prior to the 1st day of September, 1876, the Louisville City Court had exclusive original jurisdiction of the offense. The Commonwealth claims that the circuit court acquired concurrent original jurisdiction from and after the 1st day of September, 1876, by virtue of the provisions of an act of- the general assembly approved February 23, 1876, entitled “An act regulating the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial District.” The appellant denies that this act is constitutional.

It is objected, first, that the title is insufficient, there being no such court as that described. But there is a circuit court for the county of Jefferson established by the constitution; and as Jefferson County composes the Ninth Judicial District, the circuit court of the one is of necessity the circuit court of the other, and hence while the description is technically inaccurate we must regard it as substantially good.

It is next objected that the title is not suggestive of the subject-matter of the act, and that it embraces more than one subject.

The sections indispensably necessary to support the jurisdiction claimed for the circuit court by the Commonwealth are the first, eighth, and ninth, and these sections we quote at length.

Section 1. “That the Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial District shall, from and after the 1st day of September, 1876, have original and exclusive jurisdiction of all indictable misdemeanors committed within the corporate limits of the city of Louisville and the county of Jefferson.”

Section 8. “All other general and special acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith are hei’eby repealed.”

Section 9. “That this act shall take effect and be in force from and after the 1st day of September, 1876; provided, that so much of this act as gives exclusive jurisdiction to the Jefferson Circuit Court of indictable misdemeanors shall not apply to said court until the 1st day of January, 1878.”

The first section is sufficiently comprehensive, and, except for the proviso to the ninth section, would have invested the circuit court with exclusive original jurisdiction of indictable misdemeanors committed in Jefferson County and the city of Louisville from and after the time at which the act went into effect. The proviso annexed a condition to this comprehensive grant of jurisdiction. It was intended to avoid temporarily the full effect of the grant, and, to the extent it is necessarily inconsistent with the terms of the first section, it will be allowed to control. It does not necessarily or even by fair and liberal intendment postpone until the 1st day of January, 1878, the entire grant of jurisdiction. Giving same effect to all the language used in the two sections, we find that from and after the 1st day of September, 1876, the circuit court has had original jurisdiction of indictable misdemeanors; but this jurisdiction is concurrent with that of the city court, and will remain so until the 1st day of January, 1878, when it will become exclusive. The jurisdiction of the circuit court is the subject-matter of so much of the act as we find it necessary to consider. That subject is clearly within the title. The language in which the legislative will is expressed may not have been used with absolute precision and accuracy, but it is not so obscure as to leave us in doubt as to the legislative intent.

It may be conceded that this act could not take effect until the act creating the Seventeenth Judicial District became a law, still, it went into effect after the 1st day of September, 1876. The act creating the Seventeenth District became effectual on the 1st day of July, 1876. It was presented to the governor more than ten days before the final adjournment of the general assembly (Sundays excepted), and as he did not disapprove it it became a law at the expiration of that time. The session of the legislature was constitutionally extended. It had power after the first extension to disregard any self-imposed limitation attached to further extensions. This is the logic of the case of Speed & Worthington v. Crawford (3 Met. 207), and we see no reason at this late day to unsettle past legislation by calling in question the correctness of a construction of the constitution which has been accepted and acted upon by all the departments of the state government for more than fifteen years.

The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.