Bosarge v. StateBosarge v. State
- Reporters:
- ,
- Before:
- Rice
Appellants were jointly charged,
regularly tried, and convicted of the offense of violating the terms оf Code of Alabama 192fS, § 4078, which section reads as follows:
“No pеrson who has not been a bona fide resident of the state of Alabama for one year, then passed, shall catch or attempt to catch any salt water shrimp, within the waters of the state of Alabama, or within the waters subject to the territorial jurisdiction of sаid state, by the use of any seine or other device for the purpose of catching salt water shrimp.”
,As the case is presented here on appeal, the sole question for our consideration is: Did .the trial court err in finding as a matter of law that the place where appellants were apprehended, in the аct of trolling for shrimp), was a place “within the waters of the state of Alabama, or within the waters subject to the territorial jurisdiction оf said state?” There is no dispute in the testimony; none being offered by dеfendants.
*19 According to the bill of exceptions, appellants, at the time mentioned above, were, southwardly, “outside of Dauрhine Island, about three-quarters of a mile from the beach, and оutside of the low-water mark in the Gulf of Mexico; that is to say, about thrеe-quarters of a mile from the beach.” We judicially know, and said bill of exceptions further recites, that “Dauphine Island is in Mobile cоunty, Alabama.”
The boundaries of the state of Alabama are, as defined in section 85 of the Code of 1923, as follows:
“Beginning at the point where the thirty-first degree of north latitude crosses the Per-dido river; thence east to the western bound‘ary line of the state of Geоrgia; thence along said line, to the southern boundary line of the stаte of Tennessee; thence west along the southern boundary linе of the state of Tennessee, crossing the Tennessee river, and on to the second intersection of said river by said line; thence up said river to the mouth of Big Bear creek; thence by a direсt line, to the northwest corner of Washington county, in this state, as originally formed; thence southerly along the line of the sfate of Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico; thence eastwardly, including all islands within six leagues of the shore, to the Perdido river; аnd thence up the said river to the beginning.”
We think, and hold, that since Dauрhine Island is admittedly owe.of the “islands within six leagues’ of the shore,” referred to in the above description, and since there is no other such island lying south of Dauphine Island, necessarily the southern boundary line, оr coast line, of Dauphine Island became the southern boundаry line of Alabama.
In the ease of Manchester v. Massachusetts, 139 U. S. 240, 11 S. Ct. 559, 35 L. Ed. 159, cited by appellants, it is laid down as the law by thе Supreme Court of the United States that, “as between nations, the minimum limit оf the territorial jurisdiction of a nation over tide-waters is a marinе league from its coast,” and that “the extent of the territorial jurisdiction of Massachusetts [and, we may interpolate, any coast stаte] over the sea adjacent to its coast is that of an- indеpendent nation, and, except so far as any right of control over this territory has been granted to the United States, this control rеmains with the state.”
Applying the law as just quoted to the facts in the instant case, it is apparent that the place where appellants were engaged in “trolling for shrimp” was a place within the “territorial jurisdiction”, of the state of Alabama, and that the judgment of conviction should be affirmed.
Affirmed.