Court Opinion

ID: 9740691
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:40:22.489914+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:19.764415
License: Public Domain

Caporale, J.,
dissenting.
I am not prepared to adopt a rule which would ultimately require that an appellate court determine which of various competing versions of an ordinance should be judicially noticed. The place to make a proper trial record is in the trial court; if the record does not contain the ordinance in question, an appellate court should not judicially notice it.
Nonetheless, notwithstanding our recent reaffirmations, I agree with Judge Shanahan’s suggestion that the time has come to reexamine the continuing validity of our present rule. That is, an appellate court will not take judicial notice of an ordinance *650not in the record but presumes, or perhaps more correctly assumes, that a valid ordinance creating the offense charged exists, that the evidence sustains the findings of the trial court, and that the sentence is within the limits set by the ordinance. State v. King, 239 Neb. 853, 479 N.W.2d 125 (1992).
The language from Perry v. State, 37 Neb. 623, 56 N.W. 315 (1893), which Judge Grant quotes in his concurrence was expanded upon in Foley v. State, 42 Neb. 233, 60 N.W. 574 (1894). That expansion makes clear that the assumptions we presently make are outgrowths of the requirements that a municipal court take judicial notice of its own municipality’s ordinances and that upon subsequent de novo review by the district court, the district court take judicial notice of whatever the municipal court could have judicially noticed. The Foley court explained:
Courts will not, as a rule, take notice of municipal ordinances, unless required to do so by special charter or general law; but to that rule there are recognized exceptions, among which is that courts of a municipal corporation will take notice, without allegations or proof, of its own ordinances. The ground of the exception noted is that such courts stand in the same relation toward the municipal laws of the city, or other corporation, as do courts of general jurisdiction toward the public laws of the state; and on appeal from a judgment of conviction before a police magistrate of a city for the violation of an ordinance thereof the court will, upon a trial de novo, take notice of such ordinance. In short, the district court, or court of like general jurisdiction, will, on appeal from a municipal court, take notice of whatever facts the latter could have noticed judicially before the removal of the cause therefrom. The court exercising appellate jurisdiction in such cases is... for the time being regarded as a substitute for the police magistrate. [Citations omitted.] Cases are not wanting which sustain a different rule and holding in effect that in every prosecution under a city ordinance it is essential to set out, or in unmistakable terms refer to, the section or provision thereof relied upon for a conviction. In fact, the weight of authority, judged *651by the number of cases, may be said to sustain that view; but the question being an open one in this state, notwithstanding the dictum in Perry v. State, 37 Neb. [623, 56 N.W. 315 (1893),] we feel at liberty to adopt the rule most in harmony with the spirit of our liberal practice, and most promotive of a prompt and efficient enforcement of municipal laws. The reason for the strict rule of the common law which required every by-law, ordinance, or private statute to be specially pleaded cannot be said to exist under our system. At common law, prosecutions under statutes imposing a penalty against the offender, as distinguished from the body of the criminal law, were upon information and generally by a common informer, who claimed a part of the fine or penalty. [Citation omitted.] Such prosecutions were by leave of court and differed from indictments in one respect only, viz., that whereas the latter were upon the oath of twelve men, the former was upon the oath of the prosecutor alone. In such cases the same certainty was required as in prosecutions by indictment. [Citation omitted.] It seems neither necessary nor advisable to require in complaints for the violation of mere municipal regulations the same strictness as in prosecutions under the provisions of the Criminal Code. According to the better doctrine such offenses, although frequently prosecuted in the name of the state, are criminal in form merely, while in substance and effect they are civil proceedings, and, therefore, not within the provision of the constitution which declares that the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.
42 Neb. at 235-36, 60 N.W. at 574.
However, in Steiner v. State, 78 Neb. 147, 150, 110 N.W. 723, 724 (1907), this court made clear that it would not take judicial notice of municipal ordinances not in the record, declaring:
But a different rule will prevail with respect to this court, where such matters are not triable de novo. This court cannot undertake to notice the ordinances of all the municipalities within its jurisdiction, nor to search the records for evidence of their passage, amendment or repeal. A party relying upon such matters must make *652them a part of the bill of exceptions, or in some manner present them as a part of the record.
Having encouraged the creation of inadequate trial records, this court decided in Wells v. State, 152 Neb. 668, 42 N.W.2d 363 (1950), to fill in one of the inevitably resulting gaps by declaring that, as a judgment of the district court had come to the Supreme Court with the usual presumptions of regularity, it would be presumed in the absence of a showing to the contrary that the facts before the district court, including those of which it was required to take judicial notice, established that the facts charged in the complaint were a violation of the ordinance described or referred to therein. The Wells court did not undertake to explain how in the absence of the ordinance from the record one could show to the contrary.
In State v. Cottingham, 226 Neb. 270, 410 N.W.2d 498 (1987), we decided to plug yet another hole by presuming that sentences imposed under an ordinance not in the record were within the limits set in the ordinance.
Even if I leave aside the questionable wisdom of the rule as first announced, much has changed since 1894. Not the least significant of these changes is that we no longer have municipal courts. They have been merged into the county courts, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 24-515 (Reissue 1989), which have broader territorial jurisdiction than a single municipality, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 24-503 (Reissue 1989). Neither do district courts review county court decisions involving municipal ordinances de novo; the review of such cases is for error appearing on the record made in the county court. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2733 (Reissue 1989). In such instances, the district courts serve as intermediate courts of appeal, State v. Douglass, 239 Neb. 891, 479 N.W.2d 457 (1992), and are not free to go beyond the record made in the county court. Indeed, we ruled in State v. Lynch, 223 Neb. 849, 394 N.W.2d 651 (1986), that a municipal ordinance not offered in evidence in the county court could not on appeal be received in evidence in the district court. Nor can it any longer be said, if it ever could, that all actions arising under municipal ordinances are civil in nature. See, for example, State v. Metzger, 211 Neb. 593, 319 N.W.2d 459 (1982) (city ordinance making it unlawful to commit indecent, immodest, *653or filthy act said to be criminal in nature).
These changes compel me, on more mature reflection, to conclude, that the party prosecuting under an ordinance ought to be required to properly make it a part of the trial records As Judge Shanahan’s concurrence demonstrates, other states so require. The failure to fulfill that obligation should result in a dismissal of the prosecution.
I recognize that given the number of ordinance cases prosecuted in the county courts, our present rule is the more convenient one for prosecutors and court personnel. However, governmental convenience is not a legitimate basis for requiring an aggrieved defendant to establish the municipal law under which he was prosecuted and convicted.
Since the record in this case fails to contain the ordinance under which the subject proceedings were held, I would reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the cause with the direction that the district court reverse the county court’s judgment and direct that the complaint be dismissed.