Court Opinion

ID: 9552816
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:17:25.968746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:29:04.466594
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Holland
dissenting.
Believing that the fair probabilities of reason do not concur with the majority opinion herein, I declare my disagreement therewith, and present my- dissenting views. I will refer to plaintiff in error as defendant.
Under section 7, chapter 28, ’35 C.S.A., relating to butchers, an information was filed against defendant and one David Richard Mow, March 3, 1950, charging that on the 11th day of January, 1950 in Mesa county, Colorado, defendant, not being a butcher who had filed a bond as provided by law, and not having a permanent place of business, unlawfully sold to Edward D. Miller a portion of a carcass of beef, to wit: one quarter of beef, without first exhibiting the hide intact of the same, and exposing the brand upon the hide, if any,-to the purchaser, and did then and there unlawfully fail, neglect and refuse to preserve the hide of the said beef for a period of thirty days, and to exhibit the same upon the demand of Lawrence Gant, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided.
*473Trial was had to a jury on November 17, 1950, which returned a verdict finding defendant guilty as charged in the information. Information as to Mow was dismissed at close of the People’s case, for lack of evidence. After overruling a motion for new trial, the court entered judgment and sentence on the verdict by imposing a fine of three hundred dollars and imprisonment for ten months in the county jail.
The writ of error herein is prosecuted on twelve assignments of error, and those most strongly urged are, in substance, that the statute under which defendant was convicted is void in that it deprives persons of liberty and property without due process of law in violation of the Constitution of the State of Colorado and of the United States; that it is void in that it compels a person to be a witness against himself in a criminal case in violation of the Colorado Constitution; that the court erred in permitting the state to present testimony as to conversations had with codefendant; the refusal of the court to give a tendered instruction; and the giving of erroneous instructions.
I quote the section of the statute involved: “§7. Persons other than bonded butchers to exhibit and preserve hide.—It shall be unlawful for any person, company or corporation, to sell or offer for sale, except as a butcher, who has filed a bond as provided by law having a permanent place of business, the carcass of a beef or veal or any portion of such carcass, without first exhibiting the hide intact of the same, and exposing the brand upon the hide, if any, to the purchaser, and it shall be the duty of any such person, company or corporation selling or offering for sale any such carcass of beef or veal to preserve the hide of the same for a period of thirty days, and to exhibit the same for inspection upon the demand of any person.”
The trial court construed this statute as creating one offense, that is, the illegal sale or offer of sale; and further instructed the jury that the elements of the offense *474charged are: 1. Sale of carcass of beef or part of the carcass to the witness Edward D. Miller; 2. that said sale was made without first exhibiting the hide intact of the said beef and exposing the brand upon, the hide, if any, to the said purchaser; 3. that the defendant failed to preserve the hide of the said beef for a period of thirty days; 4. that the defendant failed to exhibit the same for inspection upon the demand of any person within said period of thirty days. The court in ruling upon the motion for a new trial, held that the violation of any one of these elements would make the sale illegal. The court further stated that if defendant had presented the defense of attempting to comply with the statute and for reasons beyond his control, could not keep the hide for the thirty-day period, then the court would have, upon request, instructed the jury that if failure to retain the hide for thirty days was for reasons beyond the control of defendant, he could not be found guilty.
On the face of this statute, the mere doing or failing to do the matters prescribed therein constitute the crime. While this section of the statute is to be found under the chapter relating to butchers, it was 'Unmistakably intended by the legislature to aid in the prevention of the theft of cattle. At the time of the commission of the alleged offense,, our statute concerning the larceny of cattle, which contained many of the elements here involved, had been held to be void, and deprived defendant of due process of law in violation of our state Constitution. Garcia v. People, 121 Colo. 130, 213 P. (2d) 387. Undoubtedly the district ■ attorney in the case before us resorted to' this section of the statute under- the regulation of butchers instead of the general larceny statute. On the face of the statute numerous possible defenses are not available. Ownership is no defense; true explanation as provided in the cattle-stealing statute is no defense; accident is no defense; theft of the hide by another party is no defense; and under many circumstances, the statute virtually prohibits the sale, and especially resale, of *475property rightfully possessed and owned. “It is not permissible to enact a law which, in effect, spreads an all-inclusive net for the feet of everybody upon the chance that, while the innocent will surely be entangled in its meshes, some wrong-doers also may be caught.” Fairmont Creamery Co. v. State of Minnesota, 274 U.S. 1, 47 Sup. Ct. 506, 71 L. Ed. 893.
The suggestion of the trial court that an instruction to the jury on some of these defenses should have been presented, if followed, would be equivalent to judicial legislation. “An exception not made by the legislature cannot be read into the statute.” Karoly v. Industrial Commission, 65 Colo. 239, 176 Pac. 284.
The retention of the hide is only one of the many means of proving ownership. The true owner of a beef may rightfully kill same and within his'lawful- rights, dispose of all or part of his property by a sale. If he does not display the hide, he has committed a crime and may be convicted. The owner may kill a beef for his own use and preserve the hide for the thirty-day period and then sell the hide, and be innocent of any violation of the statute;- however, if for any reason, best known to himself, he wanted to sell, he would be prevented from selling any part of the carcass on hand without a violation of the statute. He is deprived of the use of his property by this unreasonable means. The buyer of the beef, or part of same, having seen a hide and a brand thereon, after thirty days decides to sell all or part of what he bought, cannot do so because there is no hide- available to display to the second buyer, the original owner having kept the hide for thirty days and sold it or otherwise disposed of it.
These are illustrations of the dangers lurking within the strict provisions of the statute. There is no rational connection between the failure to display the hide and the. commission of the crime of larceny. Garcia v. People, supra. That the legislature may make the doing, or failure to do, an act a crime regardless of the intent of *476the person to do or omitting to1 do the act, is fundamental; however, the legislative act must be reasonable. The Attorney General states in reference to the cattle-stealing act held unconstitutional in the case of Garcia v. People, supra, that “a defendant could violate the act under consideration whether there had been a theft of any beef and even if he owned the beef himself.” This statement applies with equal force to the statute now before us.
The trial court stated that, by the information here, only one offense was charged, namely, the alleged sale of beef. The people contend, “the statute makes it unlawful to sell without exhibiting the hide and imposes a duty upon a person to preserve the hide for a period of thirty days after the sale. It is submitted that the latter part of the statute does not constitute a separate crime.”
I am not in agreement with the trial court that only one offense is created by the statute or the information. The sale of the beef is a necessary incident or element in committing the other offenses created by the statute. If defendant had been chargd with selling a portion of a carcass of beef without displaying the hide and acquitted of such charge, a prosecution for failure to keep the hide for thirty days would not be barred. The elements involved in the statute are distinctly different and require different evidence to present. It is manifest that the legislature considered the elements to be distinct for the reason that in providing' the penalty for a violation of this statute, the legislature said, “* * * violating any of the provisions of the two preceding sections shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor * * *.” §9, c. 28, supra.
Defendant was charged, and the jury instructed, as to the sale of a part of a carcass of beef to Miller without displaying the hide and not keeping the hide for thirty days and not exhibiting same on the demand of any person. The evidence discloses that he was not questioned about the hide for the beef he had sold to Miller, but was questioned about a hide to a quarter of beef *477hanging in his shed. There was no connection shown by the people of the beef hanging in the shed as being a part of the beef sold to Miller. The verdict of the jury being general, it is impossible to say upon which element involved it was based.
This statute has been in effect for over a half century, during which time no case involving the statute has been presented to this court or our Court of Appeals. As was said in People v. Mooney, 87 Colo. 567, 290 Pac. 271, “These circumstances denote that law-enforcing officers for many years have considered the statute as ineffective and wholly insufficient to constitute the violation thereof a crime. * * * ‘The practical construction given to a statute by the public officers of the state, charged with the performance of public duties in connection therewith, is always entitled to consideration, in case of doubt.’ ”
As support of my views herein to the end that the statute is unreasonable and in such unreasonableness is comparable to sections 33 and 39 of chapter 160, ’35 C.S.A. which were made nugatory by our decision in Garcia v. People, supra, we have an amendment of the sections here involved being sections 7, 8 and 9, chapter 28, ’35 C.S.A. by our 1951 legislature appearing as chapter 101, page 220, Session Laws of 1951. This amendment now makes it a felony to violate section 7, the section here involved, and contains all of the elements constituting separate and distinct offenses; however, the amended act provides for the inspection and release of the hides by a brand inspector prior to the expiration of the thirty-day period and also makes it a felony to have the carcass or any part thereof in possession without complying with the other, now outlawed, provisions of the statute. Without inference that other assignments of error and points strongly urged are without merit, I feel that a discussion thereof is not required. For the reasons herein stated, this statute should join the cattle-stealing statute now in oblivion as a result of our decision in the case of Garcia v. People, supra. The verdict and judgment thereon en*478tered upon such statute should be reversed for this reason as well as that otherwise indicated herein. The cattle-raising industry is not without my sympathy in these matters and all reasonable means of protection should be afforded; however, larceny of cattle and other livestock can be protected without the aid of imperfect statutes that involve innocent persons in an attempt to convict a thief. Here, the trial court stated that the intent of the statute involved was to prevent stealing of cattle. In this instance, we have, under that guise, a defendant convicted of a misdemeanor, and what is now a felony, without the slightest inference of the theft of any cattle.
The judgment of the trial court should be reversed.
Mr. Justice Moore joins in this dissent.