Court Opinion

ID: 9810819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:00:44.464644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:15.410087
License: Public Domain

*467Smith, C. J.
Dissenting. Not being able to concur with the other members of the Court in their construction of the Act of March, "6th 1877, as applicable to the facts of this case, I propose briefly to state the reasons for dissent.
The first section of the Act authorizes County Commissioners and the Mayor and Intendant of cities and towns in the State to provide, “ under such rules and regulations as they may deem best for the employment on the public streets, public highways and public works, or other labor for ihdividuals or corporations, of all persons imprisoned in the county jails of their respective counties, cities and towns, upon conviction of any crime or misdemeanor, or who may, be committed to jail for failure to enter into bond for keeping the peace, or for good behavior, and who fails to fay the costs which he is adjudged to pay, or to give good and sufficient security therefor.” It further requires the moneys realized “ from the hiring out of such persons ” to be applied to the “ fine and costs in cases of conviction. ” The third section declares “ that the party in whose service such convicts may be, may use the necessary means to hold and keep them in custody and to prevent their escape. ”
The object of the Act is not so much to substitute outdoor remunerating labor in place of close confinement as a preferable mode of punishment, as it is to provide for the fine and costs of prosecution, and relieve the public treasury of a burden. It allows only a hiring out for such period within the limits of the sentence as will raise the necessary amount. A different construction would confer upon these officers a discretionary power by which the authority to punish by imprisonment, vested in the Courts, could be entirely neutralized and its exercise defeated. . It is obvious this effect was never intended by the General Assembly, and their purpose was only to make the labor a subsidiary punishment so far as was necessary to pay these charges. When such hiring takes place, the legal relation of master *468and servant with enlarged powers to the former is created between the hirer and the person hired, with the right of personal control over the latter. It cannot be supposed that the Act contemplated such relation between the wife and the imprisoned hnsband, nor are any persons" embraced in its general terms except such as can legally enter into the •contract by which the relation is formed.
There are in my opinion insuperable obstacles to a construction which extends the provisions of the Act to th'e case before us:—
1. The wife by reason of the coverture has no capacity to enter into a contract with the public authorities by which dhe relation is created. She cannot assume the personal obligations, -and consequently cannot be invested with the powers involved in the relation. Nor is the difficulty obviated by the bond with sureties, because the rights conferred ■over the convict are personal to the wife, and she must be ■capable of exercising them. The bond is a security merely for enforcing the contract.
2. The effect of such hiring of the prisoner to his wife would be to subvert the marital relation and the principle upon which domestic harmony is secured, and tend to introduce an irrepressible conflict.
3. It is forbidden by public policy, and inconsistent with the peace and good order-of society.
Eor these and other reasons, the Act should not be interpreted to embracei the case before us, but its general terms should be understood as confined to persons who can lawfully enter into Ihe contract, and take and exercise the ¡authority it gives. The Judge therefore in my opinion was right in treating the transaction as evasive of the law and n-ull; and in ordering the prisouer to serve out the unexpir-•sd residue of his term.
Per Curiam. ' Order reversed.