82 P. 975 | Cal. Ct. App. | 1905
Action to recover back certain moneys collected on fines imposed by the police judge of the police court of plaintiff and alleged to have been paid over to defendant for the use and benefit of plaintiff.
Defendant demurred to the complaint for insufficiency of facts, and the court sustained the demurrer on this ground alone. Other grounds are stated in the demurrer, but as they are not mentioned in respondent's brief, they will not be noticed. Plaintiff failing to amend its complaint, judgment passed for defendant and plaintiff appeals.
It was alleged in the complaint that there existed in plaintiff city a police court presided over by a police judge who had exclusive jurisdiction over municipal misdemeanors committed within the corporate limits of the city; and that he had jurisdiction, concurrently with the justice of the peace, over such offenses under state laws as were within the jurisdiction of the justice court for the judicial township of which the city formed a part. There are two counts in the complaint: —
1. To recover certain fines imposed upon and collected from persons adjudged guilty of certain state misdemeanors, which said fines had been paid over to the county treasurer on the assumption that they belonged to the county;
2. To recover certain moneys in cases where fines had been imposed for state misdemeanors and the convicted persons had elected to serve imprisonment in lieu of paying the imposed fine, but afterwards elected to pay the remaining unpaid portion of said fines, and did so pay the same to the *630 county treasurer through the hands of the sheriff of said county.
Claims were duly presented by plaintiff to defendant through the board of supervisors for the amounts thus coming into defendant's possession, and were rejected, and in due time this action was commenced.
The city of Marysville was first incorporated by act of March 3, 1857 (Stats. 1857, p. 40). It was reincorporated by act of March 7, 1876, (Stats. 1875-1876, p. 149,) "with the powers and under the provisions of title three of the Political Code of this state," (part IV, presumably, though not so expressed in section 1 of the act. See Pol. Code, sec. 4354 et seq.; Exparte Mauch,
In effect these amended sections require all fines collected in any court (less the costs incurred), except fines for the violation of city ordinances, to be paid to the county treasurer. Appellant concedes that these sections affect the police courts established in cities and towns chartered under the general Municipal Incorporation Law of this state (Stats. 1883, p. 93), and those existing in cities which owe their corporate powers to freeholders' charters provided by the constitution. But appellant contends that municipalities which were incorporated under special acts of the legislature before the new constitution went into effect, and which have never elected to incorporate under the general Municipal Incorporation Law, are not bound by these sections of the general law found in the Penal Code, "where direct provision governing the same subject-matter is to be found in the charter itself."
We must, by the terms of the act of reincorporation of plaintiff, look to the Political Code to ascertain the powers of the police judge. Section 4424 et seq. of that code define the criminal jurisdiction of the police court. Section 4431 also provides as follows: "Proceedings in criminal actions, triable in such courts [police courts] are regulated in part II, title XI, chapter I of the Penal Code." It is in this part, title, and chapter of the Penal Code that we find the sections 1457 and 1570, supra, relating to the disposition of fines and forfeitures. To determine the powers of the municipality and of its officers, we must look to the provisions of the Political Code and Penal Code, so far as these provisions have, by the charter itself, been made applicable. Appellant contends for the principle that express provisions of the charter, enacted by special legislative act, cannot be changed by the enactment of general laws. (Citing Smith's Beach on Municipal Corporations, secs. 101, 104, 105; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, *632
183.) The principle was applied in People v. Hill,
Surely the legislature could amend or repeal these provisions; and, when amended or repealed they would, we think, control the charter provisions on the same subject, for to no others could the charter then refer. The powers of the police judge to try cases and impose fines come alone from this general law, and it is sufficiently clear that when the legislature made the general law, in effect a part of the charter, it retained its power over the general law to amend or repeal it, and when it did the one or the other it became the law, and the only law, to which section 13 of plaintiff's charter could refer. The charter, by its reference to the Political Code (see sec. 4431 of that code), provided that proceedings in criminal actions triable in police courts, shall be regulated by the provisions of the Penal Code. The disposition of fines is part of such proceedings and may be regulated the same as may the jurisdiction of the police judge be regulated. In giving the police court jurisdiction over what are termed state misdemeanors, that officer is exercising the functions of justice of the peace, who is a county officer, and should be, and, we think, is subject, in the exercise of this jurisdiction, to the general law so far as applicable to his duties while acting in such capacity. He imposes fines in these cases alone through the authority given him by the general law as he finds it and not otherwise. The effect of the amendments to the Penal *633 Code, upon the disposition of fines and forfeitures, is not brought about by the amendment of some general law independent of the charter, but by an amendment to a general law which by the terms of the charter had been made applicable to it.
The legislature may pass general laws affecting municipal corporations without reference to whether such corporations were formed before or after the constitution of 1879. (See cases in notes to section 6 of article XI of Treadwell's Annotated Constitution of California; also, Ex parte Braun,
It is claimed, however, that the amendment of the constitution of 1896 has taken away from the legislature the power to interfere in "municipal affairs," and that this matter of the disposition of fines is a municipal affair. We do not so regard it. If the charter clearly made these fines a part of the revenue of the city, by which, in part, the city was to derive its support, there might be some force in the suggestion. But the charter says nothing about fines; it is in the Penal Code alone we find the mode pointed out for their disposition. The police judge, in imposing fines for violations of state laws, is enforcing the general law as he finds it, and is performing the duties of a justice of the peace concurrently with that officer. Both officers are equally within the regulating power of the legislature in the trials of offenses punishable by state law, and such trials cannot be said to be "municipal affairs" as contemplated by the constitution. It would be vain to attempt to extract from the decisions of the supreme court a definition of these terms alike applicable to all cases. It seems to be conceded that the court has not undertaken and probably never will undertake to give a general definition of these words, but that their meaning must be determined in each individual case as it arises, and upon its own facts. Probably the cases of Fragley v. Phelan,
The judgment is affirmed.
McLaughlin, J., and Buckles, J., concurred. *634