130 Ky. 744 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1908
Opinion of the Court by
Reversing.
A judgment was rendered against appellee in the Clark circuit court for $5,000 for contempt. An appeal was prosecuted from that judgment, and upon consideration here the judgment was affirmed with damages. Thereafter the Governor issued a pardon to appellee whereby he remitted all of said' judgment except commissions, fees, and costs. Appellee filed this pardon with the clerk of the Clark circuit court, and paid to the trustee of the jury fund for Clark county the full amount of commission due the Commonwealth’s attorney for that disrict the county at
The judgment for the fine has been settled in full, and the only question now before us is the right of the Governor to remit the claim of the Commonwealth for damages. It is the contention of appellee that by reason of the pardon all of said claim, for damages has been satisfied and discharged, while for the Commonwealth it is insisted that it is a part of the fine, and that only the State’s part was satisfied by the pardon, and that the commissions going to the court officers are still unsatisfied and could not be remitted by the governor. . The authority of the Governor to remit fines and grant pardons is found in section 77 of the Constitution, which is as follows: “He shall have power to remit fines and forfeitures, commute sentences, grant reprieves and pardons, except in case of impeachment, and he shall file with each application therefor a statement of the reasons for his decision thereon, which application shall always be open to
The first question to be determined is, whether or not the $500 in litigation is either a fine or a forfeiture. Unless it is one or the other, the Governor has no power to remit it, or any part thereof, for the reason that the Governor is limited in the exercise of his pardoning power to the remission of judgment's for fines and forfeitures. Bouvier defines a “fine” to be a “pecuniary punishment imposed by a lawful tribunal upon' a person convicted of a crime or misdemeanor,” and this definition has been approved in the cases of People v. Nedrow, 122 Ill. 363, 13 N. E. 533, Hudson v. Granger, 23 Misc. Rep. (N. Y.) 401, 52 N. Y. Supp. 9, and Southern Express Co. v. Commonwealth, 92 Va. 59, 22 S. E. 809, 41 L. R. A. 436. The Supreme Court of North Carolina, in State v. Oswald, defines a “fine” to be a pecuniary punishment for an offense or a contempt committed, imposed by the judgment of a court; and in the case of State v. Steen, 14 Tex. 396, the court said: “The word “fine is derived from ‘finis,’ and is so called because it puts an end to the offense for which it is imposed.” Blackstone says: “A ‘fine’ is so called because it puts an end not only to the suit thus commenced, but also to all other suits concerning the same matter.” -Considered in the light of these judicial interpretations of the word “fine,” it is plain that the fund in question is not a fine.
Is it a forfeiture? In Black’s Law Dictionary a “forfeiture” is defined to be “the incurring of a liability to pay a definite sum of money as the consequence of violating the provisions of some statute or refusal to comply with some requirement of law.” It may be said to be a penalty imposed for miscon
The judgment is the amount which the defendant is required to pay by the final order of the circuit court. If, upon appeal, this judgment is found to be substantially correct, it is affirmed, and the - order of affirmance carries with it the damages, taxed fees and costs, such as are allowed in civil cases; for when appeals are taken from judgments iu which fines are imposed they are controlled exclusively by the Civil Code proceedings. Sections 355 and 356 of the Criminal Code of Practice. In civil cases the
For the reason indicated, the judgment of the lower eo,urt is reversed, and the case is remanded with instructions to the trial court to sustain the demurrer to the answer of defendant B. F. French, as it presents no defense to the claim for the $500 damages.