Court Opinion

ID: 9678646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:26:47.520675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:06.461175
License: Public Domain

MONTGOMERY, Judge
(dissenting).
One of the appellants is the police judge in whose court prosecutions for violation of the Sunday closing law were entered against appellees and many others. There were a large number of these prosecutions with differing dispositions. The effect of the majority opinion is to hold that such judicial officer may be enjoined from proceeding in the trial of the prosecution under a constitutional statute in which it is his duty to exercise a discretion and to act.
The authorities cited in the opinion do not justify the holding therein against the police judge. The Yick Wo and Gausepohl cases, the claimed authority for the majority opinion, did not involve judicial officers. The Purnell and City of Harrods-burg cases are not authority for the majority holding on this point although police judges were enjoined. In those cases the judicial officer was enjoined from enforcing an invalid ordinance.
Appellees were prosecuted under KRS 436.160. The constitutionality of this statute had been upheld. Commonwealth v. Arlan’s Department Store of Louisville, Ky., 357 S.W.2d 708; Arlan’s Department Store of Louisville v. Commonwealth, Ky., 369 S.W.2d 9. Thus, the Purnell and City of Harrodsburg cases are unavailable despite the comment that there is no logical difference between those cases and this case. The difference is that in those cases prosecution was under an invalid law while here the prosecution was under a law which had been upheld as constitutional by this court. Appellees have not questioned the constitutionality of the statute, nor have they sought to appeal from the judgments entered against them in the police court.
The majority opinion would dismiss Cohen v. Webb, 175 Ky. 1, 192 S.W. 828, as being overruled, ostensibly by the Pur-nell, City of Harrodsburg, and Gausepohl cases. For the reasons pointed out, these cases are not justification for overruling Cohen v. Webb, which held that a criminal prosecution of a violation of a Sunday closing law could not be enjoined. Cohen v. Webb is squarely in point with the objection I seek to make to the majority opinion and is in accord with the rule as stated in Stephens v. McCreary County, 258 Ky. 516, 80 S.W.2d 592:
“It is a settled doctrine that a criminal prosecution cannot be enjoined unless property rights are involved and it is necessary for a court of equity to interfere in order to prevent a multiplicity of suits and consequent irreparable injury.”
The Stephens case was decided after Gausepohl. See also United Steelworkers of America (AFL-CIO) v. Fuqua, 6 Cir., 253 F.2d 594.
In the Steelworkers case it was held that a labor union and its members could *426not enjoin city officials from enforcing provisions of a city ordinance when the record did not establish that the union and its members had been threatened with any injury other than that incidental to every criminal proceeding brought lawfully and in good faith or that a federal court of equity, by withdrawing determination of guilt from state courts, could afford the union and its members any protection which they could not secure by prompt trial and appeal pursued to the Supreme Court. The police judge was not a party to the proceeding. The opinion was written by Justice Stewart, then sitting on the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Steelworkers holding is adverse to the majority opinion.
In Strand Amusement Company v. City of Owensboro, 242 Ky. 772, 47 S.W.2d 710, and Gastineau v. Bradley, Ky., 249 S.W.2d 529, sought to be distinguished in the majority opinion, it was held that an accused who has violated a valid statute has no standing in equity to come into court with unclean hands and obtain relief against prosecution. The Strand Amusement Company case involved a violation of a Sunday closing law and was cited with approval in the Gastineau case.
The majority opinion seems to say that as a matter of policy it is better to give relief to a violator with unclean hands than to uphold the hands of the appellants in law enforcement because all of the violators are not prosecuted. There is no question as to the guilt of the appellees. To state a parallel situation, the one rat caught in the trap, under the authority of the majority opinion here, could justifiably claim freedom because no others had been caught. Such reasoning cannot be justified.
This opinion is far-reaching. It is put within the power of every accused to say that he has been discriminated against when he is arrested. One possible effect is to outlaw on the basis of discrimination a conviction against an accused wherein an accomplice has testified. This decision places another stumbling block in the rocky road to law enforcement.
For these reasons I respectfully dissent.