148 Ga. 423 | Ga. | 1918
The alternative road law referred to in the first question propounded by the Court of Appeals is the act of 1891
It will readily be perceived, from a consideration- of the provisions above quoted from the alternative road law, that it was the purpose of the General Assembly in enacting it to provide an adequate and complete road law for any county in the State adopting it. Certain officials are given “the sole right to lay out, open, change, or discontinue public roads” in the county, and the sole management of the working of said roads (§ 694). They may establish a chain-gang for the working of misdemeanor convicts on the public roads (§ 697), and may build such houses or stockades and purchase any thing or article necessary and useful in handling' and working the chain-gang, and may purchase all machinery, implements, tools, wagons, and stock necessary and required for work
The case now in hand is not controlled by the decision rendered in. Garrison v. Perkins, 137 Ga. 744 (74 S. E. 541). It was there held by a majority of the court that “Any county in the State may make requisition for its quota of the male convicts to be employed upon the public roads of the county, and it is competent for the county authorities having charge of the roads and revenues of the county to levy a tax to defray the expense incurred in the maintenance, keeping, and equipment of the force of hands obtained from the State.” The question upon which the court was divided in that case was, in brief, whether the act of 1908 conferred upon county authorities, by necessary implication, the power to levy taxes in addition to those previously authorized by law. The point whether a county wherein the alternative road law was in operation, and which, under that law, had levied the maximum tax, could levy an additional tax for the maintenance of felony convicts received under the act of 1908, was in nowise involved. No alternative road law was in operation in the county where the tax levy under consideration in that case was made. It is true that Justice Beck, in delivering the opinion for the majority of- the court, used the following language: “We do think that any county in the State, whatever its road system might be at the time, could make requisition for convicts under the provisions of the act of 1908, and, having obtained the convicts in accordance with its application, could employ them conformably to the purposes of that law, keeping in
Nor is the question involved in the present case controlled by the decision in Pennington v. Gammon, 67 Ga. 456. The ruling there made was as to the implied power to levy a tax where no express authority was given to do so.