Court Opinion

ID: 9536272
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:56:58.982221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:29.803910
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Day
specially concurring:
As the only Justice now on the court who participated in Canon City v. Merris, supra, I specially concur in the holding of the majority in this case but cannot subscribe wholly to the cases cited by the majority in supporting the denial of a jury trial to the petitioner.
Two aspects of the decision seem to obfuscate the issue: First, the majority appears to rely on the old cases of City of Greeley v. Hamman, supra, and McInerney v. City of Denver, supra. I would not exhume them. In my view those cases are of historical interest only and should furnish no basis for a decision in this case. Hamman held that a prosecution for a violation of a municipal ordinance was a civil action and reasoned that to hold otherwise would “largely destroy the usefulness of such corporations.” McInerney was concerned with a jury trial in connection with a violation of an act under a municipal bylaw which was also a misdemeanor under a public *459statute punishable by indictment and jury trial. The court reasoned that the necessity of a jury trial would “seriously impair the usefulness and efficiency of city governments.” We said in Merris that the early decisions were bottomed on the rule of expediency, as appeared to be clearly indicated.
.-.-To the extent that those cases deny the criminal nature of prosecutions under municipal ordinances such as the one allegedly violated in the case at bar, they are not relevant to the contemporary view. Nor is their apparent reliance on mere expedience consistent with our view of protection of an individual’s constitutionally protected rights. I hope that is what the majority holds, but the reluctance of my brothers to say so in black and white prompts me to clearly set forth my position.
My second objection to the majority opinion is its reading of Merris, supra. In Merris, the ordinance in question was found not to supersede a state law relating to the same offense, and the court held, “* * * Since there is a statute making such conduct a crime, its counterpart in the municipal laws of Canon City must be tried and punished as a crime.”
Moreover, this court attempted in Merris to set to rest once and for all time the notion that prosecution of a violation of a municipal ordinance punishable by imprisonment was civil in nature. “* * * Label the judicial process as one will, no resort to subtlety can refute the fact that the power to imprison is a criminal sanction.”
But Merris was not concerned with distinguishing between petty and serious offenses and did not hold that all violations of a municipal ordinance which carries criminal sanctions entitle the violator constitutionally to á trial by jury. The legislature after Merris provided in C.R.S. 139-63-1, “In any action pending before any police magistrate court, police court, or municipal court of any city, city and county, or town in which a party thereto is entitled to a jury trial by the constitution or general laws of the state, such party may have a jury summoned to *460try the same. * * *”This was repeated in an amendment found in Session Laws of 1969, Chapter 107, section 37-22-12. Thus no absolute right to a jury can be read into the legislative intent. So to the extent that the broad language in Merris appears to have been interpreted by some home rule municipalities as decreeing a constitutionally guaranteed right to a jury trial in petty offenses, I subscribe to modifying it and bringing ourselves in line with Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, cited in the majority opinion.