Tonopah bonanza. [volume] (Butler City [i.e. Butler], Nev.) 1901-1909, 1908-10-03

strong opinion deliVered yesterday
afternoon, Judge Langan of the dis
trict court, brushes aside the techni-
calities i%nterposed by Tom B. Hickey,
erstwhile president of the State Bank
and Trust company, and orders that
he shall plead to the indictment
charging him with embezzlement.
This is one of the hardest blows
yet delivered to the f~inancier whose
business methods have placed hun
dreds Of people into want.
Although his counsel from Cali
fornia presented all kinds of u
to relieve him of the necessity of
pleading. Hickey must now stand
trial in Esmeralda county and, if
convicted, he will be given a sentence
in the penitentiary such as the law
provides. Judge Langan passed up
on the legal objections involved in
the case, and leaves the banker moth
ing upon which to stand. In part,
the courts opinion follows:
OPINION OF THE COURT.
"The defendant is being %prosecut-
ed under the following act of the leg
islature of Nevada, passed at its
last regular session:
"An act making any banker, or
any officer, agent or clerk Of any
bank receiving deposits, knowing
that said bank is insolvent, guilty of
ENLIGHTENMENT and providing for the
punishment therefore. & = = Every
officer, agent, teller or clerk of any
bank and every individual banker
who receives any deposits, knowing
that such bank or association or
banker is insolvent, shall be guilty
of embezzlement."
The penalty prescribed in cases of
conviction is from one to fifteen
years. The court goes on:
CONVENTIONS OF COUNSEL.
1T is urged that the act is viola
tive of four constitutional provisions
of the state of Nevada, and also of
the fourteenth amendment to the
constitution Of the United States.
Counsel for defendant contends that
the above act is special legislation,
and therefore unconstitutional, be-
cause it applies to bankers only and
not to others who may commit the
prescribed acts. The argument in
behalf of this contention is that the
act in question, making a crime for
bankers only to receive deposits aft
err they are insolvent, is class legis-
lation, because it makes bankers
alone subject to punishment for acts
that would not be criminal or punish
able if committed by others.
While it may be said that the act
is in a sense class legislation, still it
is not so in the invidious sense that
renders it obnoxious to the provisions
of the constitution. When a law APP
plies to all persons engaged in a GER
tain occupation or business, and each
n is without distinction, amenable
to its provisions solely because he
pursues such occupation or business,
then 1t is binding upon all persons of
the community under similar circum-
stances. Such legislation has uni
formly been upheld. The laws which
regulate criminal prosecutions and
proceedings or provide that acts done
by certain classes of persons shall be
crimes, are valid as applied to all of
a class where the classification is
based upon a reasonable distinction,
and it is for the legislature and not
for the courts to decide what is a
reasonable distinction, the courts be.
ing able to hold a law demonstrations
al only when the classification is
based on purely arbitrary grounds.
MOTIVE OF THE LAW.
TT was the manifest purpose of the
legislature by the banking act of
1907 to suppress fraudulent banking
and to prohibit the business Of bank
ing being conducted by an i%nsolvent
person, company or corporation. It
consequently inlicts punishment up
on persons who engage in the bank
ing business with knowledge that the
bank is %insolvent. A bank implies
capital and capital invites confidence.
A man holding himself out as a bank
er thereby gives public proclamation
that he has money and property read
lily convertible into money, in his pos
session and subject to his control,
and for that reason he may be safely
trusted. 1t requires no argumenta-
ton or citation of authorities to show
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