Court Opinion

ID: 9695166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:10:19.897505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:09.409657
License: Public Domain

CATES, Judge
(concurring specially in denial of the application) :
As to the application for rehearing, I think it is only needful to note that the wording of the judgment of the juvenile court shows that it purports to be based on the authority of Code 1940, T. 15, § 419.
Hence, if the act charged is not “an offense against the person or property of another,” as this statute directs, then the judgment of conviction cannot support the demanding of recognizance with sureties to keep the peace, as distinguished from “to be of good behavior.” See Blackston.e, Comm. iv. 251.
*480Beyond this I am loathe to go. Before I should abandon Blackstone for Judge Poffenbarger, I should want to see a clearer indication of § 419, supra, being preemptive of the common law.
There are subsidiary questions of the extent of assimilation of English statutes into the body of the common law and the ■extent of statutes applying to British realms beyond the seas.
Too, our Code ingenuously provides:
“§ 3. The common law of England, so far as it is not inconsistent with the Constitution, laws and institutions of this state, shall, together with such institutions and laws, be the rule of decisions, and shall continue in force, except as from time to time it may be altered or repealed by the legislature.” —Code 1940, T. 1, § 3.
Does this mean the cut off date is 1607 with the landing of English settlers or July 4, 1776? See Carter v. Balfour, 19 Ala. 814.
Again, is binding over after conviction 1 without evidence of propensity to commit ■the same offense in futuro a breach of the prohibition against double punishment for the same act? Constitution 1901, § 9.
Whether or not the Justices of the Peace Act of 1361, Halsbury’s Statutes of England, 2d Ed., Vol. 14, p. 709 (34 Edw. Ill, c. 1), conferring authority over rioters, barrators, rebels and those who blemish the peace, etc., is part of the received common law of this state is not now necessary to decide.
The case of State v. Gilliland, 51 W.Va. 278, 41 S.E. 131, 90 Am.St.Rep. 793, seems to rest on the assumption that Virginia2 did not accept this enactment except “as to common-law gross misdemeanors for which common-law punishment only can be inflicted.” Yet, Pennsylvania did, and moreover to the extent that, until 1952, a court, on a man’s acquittal, could nevertheless make him find bail for his good behavior. Commonwealth v. Duane, 1 Binney 99; Commonwealth v. Franklin, 172 Pa.Super. 152, 92 A.2d 272.
In addition to the Act of 1361, supra, we also find:
(a) The inherent common law authority of conservators of the peace, per Avory, J., in Lansbury v. Riley (1914), 3 K.B. 229; see also form of bond used in Goodwin v. Governor, 1 Stew. & P. 465.
(b) English statutory authority of justices antedating July 4, 1776, e. g., 2 Edw. Ill, c. 6.
(c) The statutory peace bond where threats of force are made — T. 15, § 401 ; Murray v. State, 32 Ala.App. 305, 25 So.2d 704.
*481(d) The statutory power of a juvenile court, under Code 1940, T. 13, § 351, to issue “an injunctive order against” a person who contributes to the delinquency of a child — without interfering with prosecution, for example, under T. 13, § 366.
(e) The authority of courts of equity to enjoin otherwise irreparably damaging threatened criminal acts. Blount v. Sixteenth St. Baptist Church, 206 Ala. 423, 90 So. 602; United States v. U. S. Klans, Knights of Ku Klux Klan, Inc., D.C., 194 F.Supp. 897.
The quo modo of the offense of instant concern was that the appellants encouraged certain named children not to attend school. See Code 1940, T. 52, §§ 297, as amended, 301 and 304. This is not within the usually thought of concept of an offense against the person.
This is all I think we have to decide in the case at bar before the Supreme Court of Alabama has had occasion to construe § 419, supra.
Reference can be made — to the reader’s confusion — to the following additional cases and writings:
1. Blackstone, Comm, iv., Ch. XVIII.
2. Burn’s, Justice of the Peace (24th Ed.), V p. 307, Surety for the Good Behavior.
3. Glanville Williams, Preventive Justice and the Rule of Law, 16 Mod.L.Rev. 417.
4. Pluclcnett, Concise History of the Common Law, 167-169.
5. Delone, Preventive Justice, Note, 88 U.Pa.L.Rev. 331.
6. R. v. Dunn (1840), 12 A. & E. 599.
7. R. v. Dunn (1847), 12 A. & E. N.S. 1026.
8. Estes v. State, 21 Tenn. 496.
9. MacKenzie v. Martin (Can.), (1954) S.C.R. 361.

. In R. v. County of London Quarter Sessions (1948), 1 KB. 670, Lord Goddard, C. L, stated for the court (Atkinson, X, dissenting) that an order for a bond for good behavior was not a conviction and hence no appeal lay therefrom. Humphreys, X, concurring said (at 679) : “ * * * It is, in my opinion, too late, in 1947, to cast doubts on the series of decisions ancient and modern which explain the purpose and effect of this venerable statute. * * * ” See also the opinions of the .Court of Appeal and of the Court of Criminal Appeal in Everett v. Ribbands (1952), 2 KB. 198, and in Pinch (1962), 47 Cr.App.R. 58.

. The Virginia statute (Ch. 74, Code 1819) seems expository of the Act . of 1361 in that it confers on judges and justices “power to demand of such persons, as are not of good fame, sufficient surety and main-prize of their good behavior.” Of. Va.Oode, T. 19.1-20 (1960 Replacement Vol.); Welling’s Case, 6 Grat. (Va.) 670.
Tennessee seems to have substantially the same statute as our T. 15, § 419, viz., § 38-318, Tenn.Code Ann. Wetter v. State, 3 Tenn.Cas. (Shannon) 599.
In 1712 Proprietary Act No. 322 enumerated the Statutes of England to be made of force in Carolina south and west of Cape Pear. Cooper’s South Carolina Statutes at Large, Vol. II, 399 et seq. While 2 Edw. Ill, c. 6, relating to powers of justices is enumerated, 34 Edw. Ill, c. 1, is not listed.