Court Opinion

ID: 9833823
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:03:36.220078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:06.724681
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
An earnest and vigorous motion for rehearing has been filed in this case by attorneys employed by appellees since the original opinion was rendered. This motion renews some of the attacks made upon the constitutionality of the act in question on the original hearing, and injects new arguments not noted in the original opinion. We have therefore carefully re-examined the record, and deem it advisable to indicate briefly our views upon the questions discussed in the motion.
It is urged that the mandamus should have issued, because under article 6690 it was the duty of the tax collector to issue a receipt, number plates, seals, etc., to appellees when appellees filed an application therefor and tendered “the amount of license fee required by law”; that the fee provided in article 820 of the Penal Code was not a license fee, but a tax; and that, therefore, the tax collector was no more justified in refusing to issue said receipt, number plates, seals, etc., on account of a failure to pay this tax than for a failure to pay an ad valorem tax. The language “shall pay said collector the amount of the license fee required by law” does not mean a part of the license fee required by law, but all of the license fee required by law. The fee prescribed in article 820 of the Penal Code is in no sense a tax, but, as stated in said article, is “an additional registration fee.” The tax collector had no authority to issue the receipt, number plate, seals, etc., unless this registration fee was paid him'along with other fees required by law, and the mandamus should not have issued compelling him so to do.
The argument is renewed with vigor that section 16e of chapter 75, p. 158, Acts of the Thirty-Eighth Legislature (1923), which is now article 820 of the Penal Code, was repealed by the Legislature in the following language, found in the final title of the act adopting the Revised Civil Statutes of 1925:
“All Civil Statutes of a general nature, in force when the Revised Statutes take effect, and which are not included herein, or which are not hereby expressly continued in force, are hereby repealed.” Section 2. -
Just how that language could be construed as repealing the act under construction, we are unable to understand. Sectiqn 16e has never been a civil statute. It was a penal statute when enacted and has ever since remained. It was the duty of the codifiers to sift all acts of the Legislature enacted since the revision of 19‘11 and place in the Penal Code such acts as provided a penalty for their violation. This particular section was found to be penal in its nature, and was therefore properly placed in the Penal Code, and expressly continued in force without modification or change. If it was valid as section 16e, it is valid as article 820 of the Penal Code.
The argument is made that an indictment under this article could not be upheld, because all of the essential elements of the crime are not contained within its four walls. The argument is based upon the conception that one cannot be punished criminally for the violation of duties imposed by Civil Statutes, even though the Penal Code makes such violation a penal offense. That is not an open question in our state. Many articles of the Penal Code are incomplete, unless reference is made to the Civil Statutes in aid thereof. One of the most familiar illustrations of this rule is article 121 of the Penal Code, 1925. This is a very old article and reads as follows:
“Whoever shall pursue or follow any occupation, calling or profession, or do any act taxed by law, without first obtaining a license therefor, shall be fined not less than the amount of the taxes due and not more than double that sum.”
That article depends a great deal more upon the provisions of the Revised Civil Statutes than does article 820. It has been attacked upon the same ground urged by appel-lees in this case, but its constitutionality has been uniformly upheld as against such attack. In the case of South v. State, 72 Tex. Cr. R. 381, 162 S. W. 510, the appellant was prosecuted and convicted under this- article and article 7355 of the Revised Civil Statutes. Appellant attacked the constitutionality of the act on the ground that:
“Said offense, if any, is not defined by the Penal Code, as provided by title 1, art. 1, nor is it in compliance with article 3 of said Code, and is void as a penal statute.”
In overruling the objection and upholding the constitutionality of the act, the court used the following language:
“As expressly provided by article 6, Pen. Code, not only the articles in the Penal Code can be looked to, but ‘other written law of the state’ may and should be looked to. This court has always held that this law (now article 121, Pen. Code) in connection with our Civil Statutes, prescribing what occupations may be taxed and fixing the amount of the tax, and requiring payment thereof and a license before *483pursuing it, prescribes a penal offense and is constitutional.”
Many authorities are cited by the court in support of the holding. To our minds that forecloses the question.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.