Case ID: ky_76/html/0331-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "JUDGE COFER", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Case 18 — INDICTMENT
    Oct. 1.
    Sellers, &c. v. Commonwealth.
    APPEAL FROM BRACKEN CRIMINAL COURT.
    1. Acts of the same General Assembly which adopted the General Statutes, “ so far as they may be inconsistent with or repugnant to any provision of the General Statutes, shall be considered the law of the land.” (Sec. 2, art. 2, “An act to adopt the General Statutes,” approved April 22, 1873.)
    
      The rule adopted in Broaddus v. Broaddus (10 Bush, 308) does not apply to acts passed by the same General Assembly which adopted the General Statutes of 1873.
    
      2. The Kuklux Law. — An act to amend chapter 28, Revised Statutes, approved April 11, 1873, passed by the same General Assembly which • adopted the General Statutes, being inconsistent with and repugnant to the provisions of the General Statutes, and not embraced therein, is in force as the law of the land. (Sec. 6, art. 2, act of April 22, 1873, to adopt the General Statutes.)
    3. An indictment charging, in the words of the statute, against “ unlawfully banding themselves together for the purpose of intimidating, alarming, and disturbing,” etc., is sufficient.
    
    In this case the judgment of the Bracken Criminal Court sentencing the three appellants each to one year’s confinement in the penitentiary, on an indictment found under the statute commonly known as “ The Kuklux Law,” is affirmed.
    ■ R. K. SMITH, EOR APPELLANTS.
    The act of April 11, 1873, upon which this prosecution is based, is unconstitutional (Constitution, sec. 37, art.-2) — -first, because it relates to more than one subject, and, second, because the subject of the act is not expressed in its title. (Broaddus v. Broaddus, 10 Bush, 299.)
    THOS. E. MOSS, ATTORNEY-GENERAL, EOR APPELLEE.
   JUDGE COFER

delivered the opinion of the court.

The appellants having been convicted of unlawfully confederating and banding themselves together for the purpose of intimidating, alarming, and disturbing F. M. Staton, and adjudged to suffer one year’s imprisonment in the penitentiary, have appealed to this court for the reversal of the judgment.

They were convicted under the second section of an act entitled “An act to amend chapter 28 of the Revised Statutes, title Crimes and Punishments,’ approved April 11, 1873, and . commonly called the Kuklux Law.’ ”

The act adopting the General Statutes was approved April 22, 1873, and provided that they should take effect December 1st of that year, and that when they went into effect all statutes of a general nature then in force, and which were repugnant to ,the General Statutes, should be repealed, except certain enumerated statutes, of which that in question is not one.

In Broaddus v. Broaddus (10 Bush, 308) it was held that the General Statutes must be regarded as containing a complete system of laws, and when they contain provisions on any general subject such provisions must be regarded as all the statute law on that subject.

The General Statutes contain provisions on the general subject of crimes and punishments, and the kuklux act being in force when they went into effect, would, under the rule in the Broaddus case, stand repealed. But that rule does not apply to this act.

Sec. 6 of art. 2 of the act adopting the General Statutes provides, that, the acts of that General Assembly, so far as they may be inconsistent with or repugnant to any provision of the General Statutes, shall be considered the law of the land.

The “Kuklux” law, being omitted from the General Statutes, and repugnant thereto, according to the interpretation of sec. 2, art. 1, as given in Broaddus v. Broaddus, is also repugnant within the meaning of sec. 6, art. 2, and being an act of the same General Assembly by which the General Statutes were adopted, is not repealed, but continues to be the law of the land.

The indictment was sufficient.

The crime with which the appellants were charged consisted in unlawfully banding themselves together for the purpose of intimidating, alarming, and disturbing F. M. Staton, and was laid in the very words of the statute.

The act is not unconstitutional. (Grundy v. Commonwealth, 12 Bush, 353.)

Judgment affirmed.