Case ID: njl_98/html/0905-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Ctjriam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

STATE OF NEW JERSEY, DEFENDANT IN ERROR, v. STANLEY SAKOWICZ, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR.
    Submitted March 26, 1923
    Decided June 18, 1923.
    On appeal from the Supreme Court, in which the following per curiam was filed:
    “The defendant was convicted in the Third Criminal Court of ISTewark, under a complaint charging him with driving an automobile on a public thoroughfare, in "Newark, while intoxicated. His conviction was reviewed in the Common Pleas of Essex, and there affirmed, and that affirmance is before us for review on this writ of certiorari.
    
    “The complaint charges that the offense was committed ‘on a public thoroughfare, to wit, “Weequahiek Park.” ’ The prosecutor contends that under the act which provides a penalty for driving in such a condition, upon a public street or highway, the complaint is insufficient, since a public park is not a street or highway. In this we cannot concur, since every public thoroughfare is in legal effect a public highway, for the purposes of this act.
    “We think also, that the conviction of the defendant was justified by the evidence, as there was ample testimony that he was intoxicated at the time he was driving.
    “We deem the conviction sufficient in form and substance. It is, T thereupon adjudge the said Stanley Sakowics to be a disorderly person, and guilty as charged, and order him committed to the county jail for thirty days.’
    “There are cases which hold that a defendant must first be found guilty of the offence charged, and then adjudged a disorderly person. The conviction here is tantamount to finding him guilty as a disorderly person, and then imposing the judgment. The finding and the conviction are one. The order of their expression is essntially the same, in legal effect, as though there had been a formal finding of the violation, and therafter an imposition of the judgment. In nowise can the defendant be said to be prejudiced by a joint finding of guilt and judgment thereon.
    '"The conviction will be affirmed.”
    Ror the plaintiff in error, William R. Wilson.
    
    Ror the defendant in error, John O. Bigelow, prosecutor of the pleas.
   Per Ctjriam.

The judgment under review herein should be affirmed, for the reasons expressed in the opinion of the Supreme Court.

For affirmance — The Chancellor, Chief Justice, Parker, ICalisch, Black, Katzenbach, White, Heppenheimer, Ackerson, Van Buskirk, JJ. 10.

For reversal — None.