75 N.Y.S. 777 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1902
The return is defective in saying that the relator is held after conviction under a warrant of commitment of a magistrate for “ Disorderly Conduct ”. There is no such criminal offense in the Penal Code or other general law of the state as “ disorderly conduct ”. Nor is any such offense defined in the city charter, so far as,I can find, though the phrase is loosely used there (§ 707 et seq. ). In the charter of the old city of New York, however, (Consolidation Act, L. 1882, c. 410), driving orQriding a horse through the streets faster than five miles an hour is made a criminal offense there called “disorderly conduct” (§ 1448), and in another section (§ 1458) an offense there called “ disorderly conduct that tends to a breach of the peace ” is defined to be (1) suffering an unmuzzled ferocious or vicious dog to be at large, (2) the plying of her vocation in the street by a common prostitute “to the annoyance of the inhabitants or passers by”, and (3) “ any threatening, abusive or insulting behavior with intent to
On looking from the return to the warrant of commitment, how- . ever, I find that the relator is therein held as being a “ Disorderly person ”, which is a very different thing. The statutes carefully defined who “ disorderly persons ” are, viz., persons who abandon their wives, fortunetellers, jugglers, certain kinds of gamblers, and the like (Code Crim. Pro. § 899; City Charter, § 686), and this commitment fully sets out the statutory dereliction which makes this relator a disorderly person, i. e., he has abandoned his wife without adequate support.
The writ is dismissed.