Court Opinion

ID: 9812163
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:37:26.683967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:22.196215
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J\,
dissenting: The Supreme Court of the United States has held that no court should assume to declare a statute unconstitutional'unless it was clearly so, “beyond all reasonable doubt.” Ogden v. Sanders, 12 Wheaton, 213. This Court so held in Sutton v. Phillips, 116 N. C., 504; State v. Lytle, 138 N. C., 741; Daniels v. Homer, 139 N. C., 228, and in other cases. Cooley Cons. Lim. (7 Ed.), 254, states this as the accepted doctrine, and cites numerous authorities. Certainly we would not hold that a co-ordinate department had either ignorantly or intentionally violated the Constitution, which they had sworn to observe, unless it was clear to us beyond a reasonable doubt. Inasmuch as this Court, in a recent and unaitimous opinion (State v. Long, 143 N. C., 673), upheld this statute, we at least cannot think there is no reasonable doubt about it.
*715Nor should a court hold an act unconstitutional unless it can point to the provision of the Constitution which the Legislature has violated. This cannot be done in this case.
Neither should a court put a meaning on the statute, which meaning the court may deem will make it unconstitutional, when there is a just and reasonable construction which renders it constitutional. This construction we put upon this statute in State v. Long, supra, when we held that the Legislature had power to provide what should constitute bigamy (which was unknown at common law), and that in this section the Legislature had made the crime of bigamy consist, not in the second marriage, but in the living together in this State as a man and wife under color of such second ceremony. Without that ceremony, it would be fornication and adultery. With such fraudulent ceremony, wherever it took place, such living together here is bigamy.
In State v. Cutshall, 110 N. C., 548, and 552, Avery, J., speaking for the majority, conceded that if this construction was the meaning of the act, it was valid. Merrimon, C. J., contended that this was the true construction. He said (p. 553) : “This enactment is not very aptly, precisely or clearly expressed, and hence its validity is seriously questioned. But it must receive such reasonable interpretation as will render it intelligible, operative and effectual, if this can be done consistent with the Constitution. It does not necessarily imply or intend that the offender shall be indictable and convicted in this State for the offense, of bigamy in another State; such is not its meaning. It intends that whoever shall be in this State, being married to two living wives or two living husbands, as the case may be (except in the cases excepted to in the proviso- to the. statute), shall be guilty bf felony, and that without regard to whether the second marriage took place in this State or elsewhere.” Further, he says (p. 554) : “It makes the bigamist here answerable, because he is so living here, an offense to and an offender against this State and society here. The fact of bigamy — having two living wives or two living husbands — and the presence of the offender (living in second marriage) in this State constitute the offense. . . . The statute does not treat the second marriage as the offense, nor the offense as committed elsewhere than in the State.”
Again, on p. 557 (110 N. C.), Chief Justice Merrimon says: “The statute does not make the second marriage the offense; it simply treats this as a fact to be taken in connection with others, all constituting the offense in this State. The offense is wholly statutory in its nature, and must be so treated.” This view must *716be correct, else society iii this State is powerless to protect itself, if the bigamist, living here, has taken the trouble to have the ceremony of the second marriage performed in another State. We need not discuss the reference to indictment for fornication and adultery, except to say that if that is an adequate remedy, why have any statute against bigamy at all ?
In State v. Long, 143 N. C., 673, this Court took Judge Merrimon’s construction of the statute, which is identical with that in Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, as the one intended by the Legislature — as it doubtless was — and applied Judge Avery's concession, that if this were, its meaning the statute was valid. This effectuated the intent of the Legislature, avoided holding their action violative of the Constitution, protected society and convicted a guilty man. Why disturb this result? For whose benefit? No innocent man can suffer by letting the law stand as we held it to be in State v. Long.