Court Opinion

ID: 3280825
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 16:54:35.149585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:13:57.014723
License: Public Domain

I concur in the judgment and in the opinion of Mr. Justice Craig, with this exception: I do not concur in what he says upon the subject of estoppel. I think it inexpedient to join in a quest for the reasons upon which the supreme court, in company with other tribunals, has applied the doctrine of estoppel in criminal cases, for I do not think such a search is necessary to a decision of the present action. Upon the question of estoppel I think no more than this need be said: The doctrine has been applied in no criminal case except where the defendant was sought to be punished for a wrongful invasion of the private property right of an individual, which invasion might have been the subject of a civil action by the individual, and in which he might have invoked the estoppel allowed to be asserted in the criminal case. The prosecution here seeks to punish appellant for acts and omissions which did not themselves invade the property right of any individual. There is no estoppel involved in the specific charges here made which any individual could invoke. It seems to me that these are sufficient reasons for the assertion that the criminal cases in which the doctrine has been applied are not authority for its application in the present instance. Laying aside the compulsion of precedents, I can perceive no ground for its application here and respondent has shown us none.
A petition by respondent to have the cause heard in the supreme court, after judgment in the district court of appeal, was denied by the supreme court on February 4, 1926.
Curtis, J., deeming himself disqualified, did not participate. *Page 488