Court Opinion

ID: 9812634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:43:34.477324+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:38.153743
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.
(dissenting): Up to and including State v. Edwards, 110 N. C., 511, (in which the authorities are.collected,) the decisions of this Court were uniform that proceedings in bastardy were civil not criminal. In State v. Burton, 113 N. C., 655, it was intimated, but not decided, that they might be construed to be criminal actions. This has been followed by Myers v. Stafford, 114 N. C., 234, (dissenting opinion, p. 689,) ■which held, by a divided Court, that it was a criminal action, and two decisions to that effect have since been made, but the constantly increasing perplexity and difficulties arising from this construction, and which threaten to virtually nullify the act, warn us to return to the ancient land-marks and show the peril of departing from them.
For the first time, the effect of the new departure has brought us face to face with this question. The Legislature has provided (Code, Sec. 32) that from the judgment and finding on the trial before the justice, “the-affiant, the woman or the defendant may appeal to the next term of the superior court of the county where the trial is to be had de novo.” Now, we are asked to nullify this express provision of the law-making power upon the ground that, this being a criminal action, no appeal lies from the judgment of the magistrate if in favor of the defendant. The power of the Legislature to enact laws cannot be abridged or denied except when their action is clearly contrary to *1218some provision of tbe Constitution. Rut it is contended •that The Oode, Section 35,'authorizing a fine often dollars, turns the action into a criminal proceeding, and ergo the express provision, Section 32, giving affiant or the woman the right to appeal, is abrogated and of no effect. This cannot be so.
1. If Sections 32 and 35 are incompatible, the provision of Section 35, authorizing the $10 penalty, should be held nullified, rather than the express provisions of Section 32. To disregard the latter is to change the whole nature of the proceeding. In construing statutes, particular stress is laid upon the mischief to be remedied. The mischief to be remedied here is not to make the begetting of a bastard child a criminal offence and to collect the petty penalty of $10 therefor. Clearly not, for there is already the criminal offence of fornication and adultery, admitting of far heavier penalty and even when no child is begotten. Besides, if bastardy is a criminal offence, the woman would be liable as an aider and abetter, a co-principal, which is cleai’ly' not contemplated by the statute. The object of the statute, through and through, is to provide for the maintenance of the child and prevent its being a charge upon the county, which is a civil, not a criminal, proceeding. This is the evident purport of the whole chapter on bastardy, and has been so recognized by a long and, until very recently, an unbroken line of decisions. Section 32 directs that the judgment, if against the defendant, shall be “ for the maintenance of the child,” a civil judgment. If the incidental power given by Section 35 to impose a penalty of $10 conflicts with the entire balance of the chapter, and the evident purpose of this long-established legislation, then that provision should be held a nullity, and not the other provisions and evident intent of the entire chapter.
*12192. But the addition of the penalty of $10 cannot consistently be held to change this proceeding, which is essentially civil in its nature, and has always been so held till very recently, into a criminal action. In exactly similar manner it is provided that the board of county commissioners are liable in certain cases for all losses sustained in the.collection of taxes, and also guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to a fine of. not less than $500. Code, Section 2075. Again, The Oode, Sec. 2703, provides that the sheriff, for failure to make proper returns of the election for State officers, is liable to forfeit $2,000 to any one who shall sue for the same, and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary. In the same manner, a penalty of $2,500 is allowed against the sheriff for failure to settle his taxes, and is added to the amount of the judgment, (McKee v. Davenport, 98 N. C., 500,) but it was not held that this made such proceeding a criminal action. There are numerous like cases. Can it be contended that, because in these cases a fine or imprisonment is imposed, the civil action is turned into a criminal proceeding, so that the defendant has the benefit of a superior number of challenges, the benefit of reasonable doubt, and, if he gets a verdict by errors of the judge in the court below, there is no review by an appeal ? In bastardy proceedings the woman, is given the right to institute proceedings to obtain judgment for the maintenance of the child by the defendant, and that he pay in a sum fixed by the court for that purpose; and if the penalty of ten dollars is a criminal proceeding, it is simply, as in the above instances, a separate matter which cannot change the woman’s civil remedy into a criminal proceeding which would protect the man from review by appeal if the civil [issue is found in his favor. If the provisions of Sections J32 and 35 are incompatible, the latter, being merely inei-*1220dental, and not the former, should give way. They should, however, rather be construed together, and, if so, Section 32 gives the woman a civil proceeding, and Section 35 is a criminal proceeding, (as in so many sections of The Code, of which two sections are above cited,) for the petty penalty limited to $10.
3. If, however, the recent doctrine were reiterated that the incidental $10 penalty changes the whole nature of the proceeding, still it does not follow that the express provision of the statute, giving the woman the right of appeal, is unconstitutional. The provision that no one shall be twice in jeopardy means simply that no one shall be tried in another action for a criminal offence after a verdict either of conviction or acquittal in a trial for the same offence. It does not forbid a review of the same case by appeal, which is merely a continuation or prolongation of the same. It is true that appeals, except on special verdicts and in certain other limited cases, are not given to the State. But that restriction is simply by virtue of the statute and not by any constitutional provision. State v. Taylor, 8 N. C., (1 Hawks.,), 162, is put expressly on that gi-onnd, and is cited as authority for a similar ruling in State v. Credle, 63 N. C., 506. Accordingly, appeals from a general verdict of not guilty were recognized in this State, (State v. Haddock,) 3 N. C., 162 (348); State v. McLelland, 1 N. C., 353 (569), till restricted by statute, Acts 1815, Ch. 895. But even if this be a criminal proceeding, the Legislature has chosen to give the “woman and the affiant ” the right to appeal, and in so doing the legislative department acted within the limits of its constitutional authoruy. That an appeal can be authorized by statute on behalf of the State from a judgment discharging the prisoner on a special verdict, or on a motion to quash, or in arrest of judgment, or from a verdict pro*1221cured by fraud, is conclusive that the cases in which the State can appeal from a judgment and verdict in favor of the defendant are to be determined by the statute law. If this be a criminal action, The Code, Section 32, by giving the affiant or the woman the right of appeal, has simply added this proceeding to the instances in which the State can appeal from a judgment discharging the defendant. The matter lies entirely with the people acting through their representatives in the Legislature. It is not likely that they will increase the number of instances, already existing by law, in which the State can appeal from a.judgment in a criminal action discharging the defendant, but power exists. The Constitution forbids that a defendant be tried for the same offence in another action. The statute allows-a defendant to apply for another trial in the same action, and that the State may do the same in certain specified instances. It is in the legislative power to increase or diminish at will the instances in which the State may - have the matter re-examined upon appeal.
MONTGOMERY, J. : I concur in the dissenting opinion.-