Case ID: mass_8/html/0390-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Walter versus Josiah Bacon and Another.
    The statute of 1808, c. 92, respecting the limits of prison-yards, militates with no provision of the constitution.
    Debt on bond for 5372 dollars, dated June 18th, 1808, and conditioned that the defendant Bacon, then a prisoner in execution at the suit of the plaintiff in the jail at Cambridge, should continue a true prisoner, &c.
    The action was submitted to the determination of the Court upon a statement of facts, in which it was agreed * that the bond was duly executed ; that Bacon was imprisoned on the plaintiff’s execution issued upon a judgment for 2674 dollars 62 cents debt, and 11 dollars 42 cents costs; that after the execution of the said bond, and before the commencement of this action, and before he was lawfully discharged from prison, the said Bacon did, by the invitation and with the consent of William Newman, go to the house of said Newman, in said Cambridge, and boarded therein from the date of said bond until the commencement of this action, but was not therein at any time after sunset or before sunrise; that said house is situated within the bounds of the jail-yard, as established by the Sessions, but is no part of said jail, or the jail-house, or any of the appurtenances belonging to said jail, nor had the county of Middlesex, during the time aforesaid, or the jailer, any right or privilege in or to the same.
    If, upon these facts, the Court should be of opinion that the said Bacon had not broken the condition of the bond declared on, according to its true intent anil meaning, the plaintiff agreed to become nonsuit, and that the defendants should recover their costs; otherwise the defendants agreed to be defaulted; and in either case that judgment should be entered accordingly.
    An argument was had March term, 1810, by Jackson for the plaintiff, and Otis for the defendants.
    
      Otis
    
    relied on the statute of 1808, c. 92, which enacts that the boundaries of jail-yards theretofore determined and assigned by the Sessions in the several counties shall be, and thereby are, rendered legal and valid to all intents and purposes, and no person, having given bond for the liberty of the yard, shall be considered as having committed an escape in consequence of having entered into or upon any private estate or property, or into any public building, or upon any public highway or town way lying within the limits of such jail-yard ; provided that nothing therein shall be construed to affect the rights of any individuals owning real estate within such limits, nor to affect any suit * wherein final judgment had been rendered by the Supreme Judicial Court.
    The facts in this action bring the case within the purview of this statute. But as the- constitutional authority of the legislature to enact such a law has been questioned, it is contended for the defendants that the legislature have authority to enclose any private property within the limits of the jail-yard, so as that a prisoner continuing within such limits shall not be considered as committing an escape. This is very distinct from authorizing a prisoner to enter on such property without the consent of the owner. In so doing he would still be a trespasser. This authority the legislature may also delegate to the Courts of Sessions, who, in assigning the limits of the yards, act merely as ministerial officers.
    The limits thus established include every part of the territory included within them ; but the legislature do not in this way convert private houses into parts of the jail. They only provide that a prisoner not going beyond those limits is not liable to a penalty. And it is well known that this was the general understanding, before this statute was made, until the decision of the case of JBaxter vs. Taber. 
       The vast mischief apprehended from that decision occasioned the passing of this law.
    The act in question may well be compared, in this view of it, to the laws so frequent in our statute-book, confirming the doings of towns and other corporations at meetings not legally held, or of assessors and other officers not regularly elected or sworn, or acts for setting up a term of a court of law which has failed by accident, and continuing or reviving all actions pending therein. Yet laws of this kind have never been questioned, as being beyond the constitutional powers of the legislature.
    
      Jackson.
    
    If the law relied on for the defendants takes from the plaintiff a vested right of action upon this bond, it is an unauthorized act of the legislature. Had the law, instead of this provision, narrowed the limits of the jail * yards, and declared that every man, who had given bond, and had exceeded the limits thus reduced, had subjected himself to the penalty of such bond, it would not have gone farther in the infraction of vested rights than this act, if the legislature necessarily requires the construction contended for. So, if it should see fit to pass an act lowering the rate of interest, and declaring void all existing securities carrying a higher rate than that prescribed, would any one doubt such an act was null by our constitution ?
    The boundaries of prisons and their yards ought above all things to be definite and known, or the utmost confusion and mischief will arise to debtors, who have the liberty of the yard, or to their creditors. By this act it is made to depend on the will of those living within the limits, whether their closes and houses shall be within or without the prison-yard. So any house within the limits may be part of the prison one week, and the next week cease to be so ; or it may be so for one prisoner, and not for another.
    The acts confirming the doings of corporations, and reviving terms of courts failing from accident, have a very different aspect. Such acts deprive no man of his vested rights, and are absolutely necessary to maintain the order of society and the course of justice.
    
      
       4 Mass. Rep. 361.
    
   The action was continued for advisement to this term ; and now

By the Court.

We decided in the case of Baxter vs. Taber, cited in the argument, that by the laws then in force, the sessions could not make any lands a part of the prison-yard, except the land belonging to the county, with the public ways leading to the prison. In the decision of that cause we expressed our apprehensions that some inconvenient effects znight result from the law thus made known. The legislature, at the ensuing session, passed the law which has been the subject of discussion in this cause, with an intention to prevent those effects; and the question to be now decided is, whether the legislature, in passing that act, exceeded

their constitutional powers. And *we see no provision of the constitution of this commonwealth, or of that of the United States, which prohibits the enacting such a law.

The statute was well likened by the defendant’s counsel to laws frequently made to confirm the acts and doings of towns and other corporations, which have been void for some informality, and in reviving terms of courts which have failed from accidents. Such acts have never been questioned on constitutional ground. Yet the same objections would lie against them, as have been urged against the one under consideration. Upon the whole, the legislature had an undoubted right to pass this act; and by its provisions the defendants are saved from the penalty of their bond.

Plaintiff nonsuit.