Case ID: njl_98/html/0125-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

EMANUEL E. KATZ, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. HENRY E. ELDREDGE ET AL., DEFENDANTS IN ERROR. AUGUST CARELL, APPELLANT, v. JAMES W. McCARTHY, RESPONDENT. DOMINICK SINISI, APPELLANT, v. JOHN J. McGOVERN, RESPONDENT.
    By inadvertence and mistake in the report of the above cases (97 N. J. L. 123) four syllabi appeared purporting to express principles of law decided in the cases, but in fact no principle of law was decided in any of the opinions written, because none received the sanction of a majority of the court (9). The head-notes simply embodied the four questions which, at the request of the judges, were voted upon separately. Ibid. 157. The first was rejected by a vote of five to six; on the second the court was evenly divided, six to six; and the third and fourth were rejected, two to nine. The names of the judges who voted in the affirmative on each question should have been printed with the head-notes, to indicate the grounds upon which the several judges voted to reverse the judgment, which was accomplished by a majority of the quorum, eight to four. Ibid. 158.
    
      The following is the correct way in which syllabi should, have appeared:
    1. ;The act entitled “An act concerning intoxicating liquors used or to be used for beverage purposes,” passed March 29th, 1921 (Pamph. Lr., p. 171), the short title of which is “Prohibition Enforcement Act,”1 commonly called the Van Ness; Act, authorizing convictions for violation of its provisions by magistrates without trial by jury, violates article 1, section 7, of the constitution of New Jersey, which provides inter alia that the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate; and also Ibid, § 9, which provides inter alia that no person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense unless upon the presentment or indictment of a grand jury. Per Walker, C., Swayze, Kalisch, Ackerson, Van Buskirk, JJ.
    2. The Van Ness act is invalid to the extent that it makes violations of its provisions disorderly acts as distinguished, from those which are criminal in their nature, because prior to its enactment the Congress of the United States had already declared by necessary implication in the Federal statute, commonly known as the Volstead act, that a person who violated any provision of the Eighteenth Amendment to the F'ederal Constitution should be guilty of crime. Per Gummere, C. J., Swayze, Kalisch, Gardner, Ackerson, Van Buskirk, JJ.
    3. The Van Ness act violates article 4, § 7, 1i 4 of the constitution of New Jersey, which provides that every law shall embrace but one object and that shall be expressed in the title. Per Walker, C., Kalisch, J.
    4. The provisions of the Van Ness act, making the supreme court justices and common pleas judges magistrates, and requiring them to enforce the act in given proceedings, imposes upon them duties which do not inhere in, or pertain to, their judicial office, and are therefore void. Per Kalisch, Katzenbach, JJ.