105 Neb. 303 | Neb. | 1920
In the district court for Furnas county Alpheus Gaddis, defendant, was convicted under the accusation that on November 9, 1919, he did “unlawfully interrupt and molest a certain religious society, to wit, the Christian Church of Beaver City, Nebraska, and the members thereof, while said members were met together for the purpose of worship.” Rev. St. 1913, sec. 8754. For that misdemeanor defendant was sentenced to pay a fine of $15 and costs of prosecution, taxed at $23.30. As plaintiff in error he presents for review the record of his trial.
The principal assignment of error is the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction. Under this head it is argued that there was1 an utter failure to prove that defendant violated any statute of the state or any rite, discipline, rule or usage of the church society, or that he unlawfully interrupted or molested the religious meeting or any member of the congregation, or that he acte°d in an improper or disorderly manner. In this connection it is further argued that interruption of a religious service is justified, if it results from the exercise of a lawful right becomingly asserted.
Apparently relying on the right to charge the offense in the language of the statute, the prosecutor did not mention in the information any specific act or acts constituting a misdemeanor. What defendant did, if anything, to justify his conviction must therefore be found alone in the testimony of witnesses. In describing what was said and done the witnesses were not entirely harmonious, but the material faets are not in dispute. Defendant was a charter member of the Christian Church of Beaver City, a religious society which had been in existence for 30 years. For Bible school, preaching and communion the congregation convened Sunday morning, November 9, 1919. The minister’s text was the Lord’s Supper or the Communion. In the midst of the sermon the minister said, in substance, that the deacons in conducting communion services had a right to pass a member whom they believed to be un
“But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
“For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and' drinketh damnation to himself.” 1 Cor. 11: 28, 29.
In speaking, defendant made no gestures. His appearance indicated sincerity. He talked a good deal like the minister, who remained standing during the interruption, afterward offered a prayer, finished his sermon, and dismissed the congregation. There is some evidence of a commotion in the meantime, during which at least two persons left the building. When defendant asked permission to address the congregation, no audible objection was made. During his remarks, however, the choir, it seems, voiced a protest by an impromptu musical service. It is manifest from undisputed evidence that defendant interrupted a religious meeting, but it is not every interruption that constitutes a violation of law. Without violating the statute forbidding the interruption of a religious meeting, members of the society may repel a ,lawless invasion either from without or from within. Under the same principle a member of a religious society, if permitted by its precepts and usages, may, in a becoming manner with good motives, interrupt a minister to correct utterances at
Reversed and dismissed.