Case Name: E. C. Dickinson v. The State
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1895-10-16
Citations: 38 Tex. Crim. 472
Docket Number: No. 1629
Parties: E. C. Dickinson v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Criminal Reports
Volume: 38
Pages: 472–482

Head Matter:
E. C. Dickinson v. The State.
No. 1629.
Decided October 16, 1895.
Motion for Rehearing Decided June 23, 1897.
Motion for Rehearing Decided December 15, 1897.
1. Information—Complaint—Practice on Appeal.
The affidavit or complaint is a prerequisite to the validity of a prosecution by information (O. 0. P., art. 431), and if the record on appeal does not contain the complaint or affidavit upon which the information is based, the prosecution will be dismissed.
ON MOTION FOB EEHEABING.
Decided September 14, 1897.
2. Same—Reinstatement' of Appeal After Dismissal.
Where an appeal has been dismissed because the complaint upon which the information was based was not contained in the record, the dismissal will be set aside and the appeal reinstated if the record is completed in this respect by the bringing up of said complaint and showing that it was, in fact, properly and legally filed in the court below.
ON EEHEABING.
3. Killing Wild Deer—Amendment and Repeal of Statutes.
Article 426, as included in the Penal Code, 1879, prohibited the killing of female deer during the months of the year therein named, and article 430a exempted certain counties, of which the county of N. was one, from the operation of said act. The Act of 1879 was entirely repealed by the Act of 1881, which re-enacted article 426, changing the months named; and in 1883 said article 426 was amended by again changing the months, and article 430 was also amended, and it again exempted the county of N. from the operation of the law, and the county of N. was again exempted by the Act of 1889. But, by the Act of 1893, amending article 430, the county of N. was not among the counties named as exempt. Held, that when the Act of 1893 was passed, amending article 430, it took the place of all preceding amendments and was a substitute in full for all such amendments, and thereby repealed them, and that this act made the county of N. subject to the operation of the law.
4. Repeal of Statutes by Implication.
Subsequent statutes, revising the subject matter of a former one, and evidently intended as a substitute for it, although it contains no express words to that effect, must operate to repeal the former to the extent to which its provisions are revised and supplied; and where the subsequent revising statute comprehends and creates an entirely new and independent system respecting the subject matter, it repeals and supersedes all previous statutes and laws respecting the same subject matter.
5. Same—Construction of Statutes.
Where a subsequent statute, which substitutes entirely a previous statute, omits a particular thing, or name of a class, mentioned in the former statute, it will. be Held, that the omission, as to that particular matter, was intended, and the doctrine “expressio unius est exclusio alterious” applies.
ON MOTION FOB EEHEABING.
Decided December 15, 1897.
6. Repealing Articles of the Code—Numbering of the Repealing Articles.
While the Constitution, by provision of article 3, section 36, requires that the section or sections of the law amended shall be re-enacted and published at length, it does not require that the amended articles shall be numbered as were the original sections or articles; as where several articles of the Code were amended whereby one of them became article 430, instead of 430a, as it was originally, this did not make the amendment unconstitutional or invalid.
Appeal from the County Court of Nacogdoches. Tried below before Hon. H. F. Dunson, County Judge.
The information charged appellant and several others jointly with unlawfully killing a wild deer, in Nacogdoches County, between the 20th day of January, 1894, and the 1st day of August, 1894. Defendant moved to quash the information because it charged no offense, inasmuch as Nacogdoches County was exempted by law from the operation of the game law which prohibited the killing of wild deer. This motion was overruled; the case was tried by the court without a jury, and the court assessed defendant’s punishment at a fine of $25. Defendant moved in arrest of judgment because Nacogdoches was exempt from said law, and therefore he had committed no offense against the law, which motion was also overruled.
No further statement necessary.
Ingraham & Ratcliff, for appellant.
Nacogdoches County being exempt from the provisions of article 426 of the Penal .Code of the State of Texas, it is no offense against the law of the State to kill and destroy a wild deer in said county on the 7th day of February, 1894, and at a time between the 20th day of January, 1894, and the 1st day of August, 1894.
The complaint and information charges the defendant with killing and destroying a wild deer in the county of Nacogdoches, Texas, on February 7, 1894, at a time between January 20 and August 1, 1894. Defendant moved to quash the information and complaint because they charged no offense, Nacogdoches County being exempt. The court overruled the motion to quash, the defendant excepting. The facts proven show that the deer was killed in Nacogdoches County at the time alleged. The court found the defendant guilty. The defendant made a motion for a new trial because the court erred in not sustaining his motion to quash, and in not acquitting the defendant under the facts proven. And also moved in arrest of judgment because the complaint and information charged no offense against the law. The court overruled the motions.
Article 426 of the Penal Code was inserted by the revisers (see Willson’s Criminal Statutes, page 10, section 15), and went into effect July 24, 1879. This article protected female deer only. On February 21, 1879, the Legislature adopted article 430a, exempting a great many counties from article 426, among them Nacogdoches.
The contention of appellant is that this article 430a has never been amended'or repealed. The first attempt to amend or change is found in chapter 38 of the Laws of the Seventeenth Legislature, page 28, approved March 15, 1881, and we call the court’s particular attention to this entire act, its caption, enacting clause, and its various sections. If this act amends article 430a, there is nothing in the appellant’s contention; if it does not, this case ought to be reversed and dismissed.
The Constitution of the State provides: “Eo bill (except general appropriation bills, which may embrace the various subjects and accounts for and on account of which moneys are appropriated) shall contain more than- one subject, which shall be expressed in its title. But if any subject shall be embraced in an act which shall not be expressed in the title, such act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be so expressed.” Sec. 35, art. 3.
“Eo law shall be revised or amended by reference to its title, but in such case the act revived, or the section or sections amended, shall be re-enacted and published at length.” Sec. 36, art. 3.
The caption of the act last mentioned is: “An act to amend articles 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, and 430a and to create article 426-£, and to repeal article 430, of chapter 5, title 13, of the Penal Code of the Eevised Statutes for the protection of, game and fish.”
Section 1 reads: “Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas, that articles 423, 424, 425,426, 427, 428, 429, and 430a, of chapter 5, title 13, of the Penal Code be so amended, and article 426-J be enacted to read as follows.”
There is no such thing as the Penal Code of the Eevised Statutes. The Penal Code of the State went intb effect July 24, 1879; the Eevised Statutes on the 1st of Setember, 1879. Eev. Stats., art. 23, p. 720.
The Penal Code is about criminal law, and nothing else; the Eevised Statutes about civil law. They are separate and distinct, and have no legal connection with each other. With this explanation, this Act of 1881 in its caption undertakes to do three things: first, to amend articles 423 to 429, and article 430a; second, to create article 426£ and to repeal article 430. At this time article 430 was an article exempting aquatic fowls, wild turkeys, and wild pigeons from the provisions of article 429. The Act of 1881 amends by re-enacting in full articles 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, and 430; enacts article 4261)-, and is absolutely silent as to article 430a. Eowhere in the body of the act is it amended or repealed in terms. Article 430, which the caption says is to be repealed, is reenacted in full, and article 430a is never mentioned in the act after leaving the first section of the act, which says it is to be amended. If this section 430a is in any way changed by this legislation, it is done by a mere reference to article 430a, and not by re-enacting it, as the Constitution requires. There is no repealing clause in this act of the Legislature, and if it repealed section 431a, as it then stood in the Penal Code, it does it by implication, and such repeals are not favored by law, especially in criminal cases.
When one looks at the title of this act, he is satisfied the Legislature intended to amend article 430a, and to repeal article 430; then when he looks to the first section he is further satisfied that the intention is to amend article 430a, but when he peruses the act and finds article 430 enacted in full and not a word said about article 430a, his conclusions are demolished and he is driven to the question, What did the Legislature do? The answer is, they simply amended article 430 by re-enacting it in full, under the constitutional rule.
Article 426 of this Act of 1881 was amended by the Eighteenth Legislature, page 79, and has remained in the form they gave it to this day.
Article 430 of the Act of 1881 was amended by the Eighteenth Legislature, page 115, and again by the Twentieth Legislature, page 117, and by the Twenty-first Legislature, pages 34 and 35, and by the Twenty-third Legislature, page 45. Every one of these acts are based on section 430 of the Act of 1881, as shown by the body of the acts themselves and the title of the same. All of them and each of them in terms are based on article 430 as amended by the Act of 1881, and each of them exempts Eacogdoches County from the provisions of article 426, except the amendment of article 430 by the Twenty-third Legislature, and so the investigation has to go back to the Act of 1881, and the question in the matter is, Did that act amend or repeal article 430a of the Penal Code of the State of Texas? If amended or repealed, it is done by reference to the number only, or by implication, and not in the manner required by the Constitution. If article 430a, as enacted by the Seventeenth Legislature, has not been repealed by the legislation rehearsed herein, then the defendants are not guilty. The law does not favor changes made by implication. State v. Drake, 86 Texas, 329; City of Laredo v. Martin, 52 Texas, 562; Cain v. State, 20 Texas, 355; Railway v. Ford, 53 Texas, 371; Laughter v. Seela, 59 Texas, 182, 183; 2 White & W., sec. 58; Thouvenin v. Rodrigues, 24 Texas, 468; Cool. Const. Lim., pp. 151, 152; Gunter v. Texas L. & M. Co., 82 Texas, 496.
Hogg & Robertson, also for appellant.
Is Eacogdoches County exempt from the provisions of the Code which prohibits the killing of deer? If it is not, then the appellant is guilty. If it is, he is innocent, and the case ■should be reversed and dismissed.
We take the affirmative of this issue. By article 426 of the Penal Code ■of the Revised Statutes, it is provided that if any person shall by shooting, or otherwise, knowingly kill any female deer in this State in the months of March, April, May, June, or July of any year, he shall be fined mot less than five nor more than twenty-five dollars. (See Penal Code, ■art. 426.)
1. Article 430a of the same Code exempts a number of counties from the provisions of that law, and Eacogdoches County is one of them. This •exemption of Eacogdoches County, together with other counties named in the Code, was by an act passed and approved March 26, 1879. See Gen, Laws 1879, p. 65.
2. The second law on this subject amended article 426 by making it •an offense to kill, ensnare, trap, or destroy any wild deer in the period of time embraced between the 1st day of December in any year and the 1st day of June of the next year, and fixed the penalty for that offense at not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than fifty dollars fine. This act also exempted Nacogdoches County, among other counties, from the provisions of that law. See arts. 426, 430, Gen. Laws 1881, pp. 29, 30.
3. The next law on the subject was an act to amend article 426 of the Penal Code, and it made it unlawful for any person to kill, trap, ensnare, or in any way destroy any wild deer between the 20th day of' January and the 1st day of August of each year. See Gen. Laws 1883,. p. 79.
4. The next law on the subject was by act approved April 18, 1883, which exempted Nacogdoches County and a great number of other counties from the operation of the law prohibiting the killing of wild, deer. See Gen. Laws 1883, p. 115.
5. The next law on the subject was an act approved April 2, 1887, which also exempted Nacogdoches County and a great number of other counties from the provisions of article 426. See Gen. Laws 1887, p. 117.
6. The next law on the subject was that or April 4, 1889, which also exempted Nacogdoches and other counties from the effect of article 426: of the Penal Code. See Gen. Laws 1889, p. 34.
7. The next law on the subject was passed March 29, 1893. It does, not re-enact any law nor does it impose a penalty upon any one for killing-deer at all. It simply includes a number of other counties in the exemption from article 426, and also exempts Nacogdoches and other counties from the provisions of articles 427, 428, and 429. It is simply an act exempting certain counties from the provisions of article 426. See Gen. Laws 1893, p. 47.
8. The last law on the subject was passed in 1895 and it simply exempts a number of counties from the provisions of article 426 and others,, but nowhere re-enacts the law making the killing or destruction of deer a penal offense. See Acts 1895, p. 158.
By investigation this court will see that the law of 1879, which made it a penal offense to kill wild deer, was incorporated in the Penal Code of the Revised Statutes as article 426. At the same time and in the same law Nacogdoches County was exempt by article 430a from its effect. That law simply made it an offense for any person, by shooting or otherwise,, knowingly to kill any female deer. By the Act of April 11, 1883, page 79, this article was so amended as to make it an offense for any person to ensnare or entrap, or in any way destroy, any wild deer, and Nacogdoches County was exempt from it. See Wills. Crim. Laws, arts. 426, 430a, and Acts of 1881, pp. 29 and 30. This law was substantially re-enacted April 11, 1883, p. 79. Since that time it has not been re-enacted at all in form or substance, but at the several sessions of the Legislature of 1883, p. 115, of 1887, p. 117, of 1889, p. 34, and of 1893, p. 45, there were exemptions of a great number of counties, including Nacogdoches County, from the effect of this law. Prom the time that it was first- exempt, from the law of 1879 up to the adoption of the Revised Statutes of 1895, nowhere have we been able to find Nacogdoches County included within the provisions of the law which makes it a penal offense to kill a deer of any kind, at any time, within its borders.
We have asked the careful consideration of this court of these several statutes, and for a reversal and dismissal of this case.
Mann Trice, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

Opinion:
DAVIDSON, Judge.
This appeal is prosecuted from a conviction had upon an information, and the record does not contain the affidavit required by article 431 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1895. This affidavit is a prerequisite to the validity of a prosecution by information, and such complaint for affidavit must he contained in the record on appeal. Wills. Grim. Stats., sec. 1999, and authorities there collated. The judgment is reversed, and the prosecution is dismissed.
Dismissed.