Court Opinion

ID: 9857032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:12:56.871788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:54.452550
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ADAIR,
dissenting:
This is a petty case. The two appellants were accused, tried and convicted of the crime of handling and distributing milk without a license. They have appealed to this court from judgments of conviction entered on a jury’s verdict, adjudging that each appellant pay a fine in the trifling sum of $2.50.
Section 49-125, R.C.M. 1947, says: “The law disregards trifles.”
The prosecutor’s conduct at the trial, as shown by the record before us on this appeal, shocks the conscience, disregards the statutes regulating orderly procedure and violates the rights guaranteed the appellants under our Constitutions, both State and Federal.
This court should forthwith set aside, vacate and annul the judgments, and order the unqualified dismissal of the entire proceeding in the trial court.
The prosecution started out as a $2.50 proceeding. It winds up in the same trifling amount.