Semi-weekly Louisianian. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1871-1872, 1871-10-15

Justice Aontamat, which reads ~ follows:
whenever any person shall be accused
OF any breach of the peace. crime or mis-
demeanor, by the oath of one or more
credltable witnesses, IL shall be the duty
of the justice of the peace or committing
magistrate or judge before whom the accu-
satiOn Is brought, to receive the complaint
and cause the accused to be arrested. and
If the offence for which the accustd il so
arrested be one that may subject the party
to capital punishment or TO Imprisonment
III the Penitentiary, the accused shall.
when arrested, be brought either before
the district judge of the district, or the
parish judge OF the parish in which the
offence may be charged to have been COM
mitted, and be proceeded on and examined
according to law.
1t is clear from the foregoing that the
Legislature never intended that Justices
of the Peace in the city of New Orleans
should come under the province of the
section, for we have no parish Judge here
and We would have to accuse the Legsia-
OF being body of fools if We admit that
they intelded to say that an accused per-
son should be sent before tribunal Which
does not exist. But we make sense of the
provision, aud if the offence be what it is
mention I'd to be, We cannot send the man
before parish Judge, because there is no
such person known here.
You cannot send him before Judge
Abel, for there is no law winch makes
the Judge of the First District Court a
committing magistrate; therefore he must
so before some one who is q committing
magistrate. The imperfect conception
touching his section 1910, arose from the
bad manner in which Rays Revised Sta
tutes were compiled.
1t Is said that the man, who complied
them, hastily caught up the manuscript,
which was arranged without much regard
to order, and sent it to MIR. Bay, who,
thinking the copy prepared Us it should
have been, sent it in turn. without exa-
nination, TO the printer, and 10! the result.
l believe the story to be quite true, for
it is badly mixed affair, as witness-in
some sections touching criminal cases
where reference is made to foregoing
section in the words ''s,.id" and ''afore-
said, when the foregoing section proves
to have reference to divorce cases or other
civil matters
The acts of 1855 gave to the Justices of
the Peace in the parish of Orleans criminal
jurisdiction; and if that power had not
been repealed it would have been kept in
force by article 149 Of the constitution,
but l think that the act of 1855, giving
the Justices criminal jurisdiction, has been
repealed. In the year 1869 the Legislature
passed an act which brought Rays Digest
into existence, and discarding everything
which conhicted with it, it was thus
adopted rs containing this law.
Under this law Justices of the Peace in
New Orleans have jurisdiction only in
civil cases, but in other parts of the State.
their jurisdiction extend to both criminal
and civil cases. There is not one section
of the chapter which grants to Justices of
the Peace in New Orleans any more
criminal jurisdiction than is granted to
The man III the moon.
Article lO6O, {. ~, gives Justices juris-
diction, but sec. 1910, Rev. Statutes, de-
fines ,chen and Ia uhat they shall have
jurisdiction, and therefore art. LOGO is If
no effect, having been repealed by the
latter section
The article in the Code Of Practice is
predicated on the possibility of Justices
of the Peace having jurisdiction, but as
the vagrant act of 1869 was then in ex;s-
tence. they Were endowed with that juris-
dictiOn.
The article in the Code Of Practice
was passed with a view to give 10 JUS
tice of the peace the power to act in
criminal and civil cases, when both were
confined to his jurisdiction. l decided
once before, that under Rays Revised
Statutes, justices of the peace in New Or
leans had no jurisdiction.