4 Mich. 187 | Mich. | 1856
By the Court,
This case arises on the return to a i’ule to show cause why a writ of manda/rrms should not issue, commanding the respondents to desist from teaching to convicts in the State prison the mechanical trade of wagon making, and from manufacturing in said prison wagons with convict labor.
This application is founded upon Section 16, of Chapter 172, of the Revised Statutes of 1846, which is in these words : “No mechanical tx’ade shall hereafter be taught to convicts in the State prison of this State, except the making of those articles of which the chief supply for the consumption of the country is imported from other States or countries.” This provision of the statute has since been incoi’porated into our present Constitution. (§ 3, Art. 18.)
The writ here asked is a command issuing from a superior to an inferior Court or tribunal, or to some person or corporation ” requiring them to do some act, or to perform some particular thing in the writ to be specified, and which the superior Court has previously determined to be right and just. In its application, it may be considered as confined to cases where the party has no other remedy. (Rex. vs. Bank of England, 1 B. and Ald., 622; Rex. vs. Archbishop of Canterbury, 8 East., 213; Carr vs. Rosseter, 2 Binn., 360.) It also appears, from these and other authorities, that the writ will not issue unless there appears to be a specific legal right.
In the case of Wellington et al. Petitioners (16 Pick., 85), Shaw, C. J., says : “ The general rule of law is that a private individual can apply for a writ of mandamus only in a case where he has some private or particular interest to be sub-served, or some particular right to be preserved or protected by the aid of this process, independent of that which he holds in common with the public at large ; and it is for the public officers exclusively to apply, where public rights are to be
Society, generally, may sustain a moral injury by having the workshops of our artizans filled with past convicts. The object of the prohibitory Act is not specified, yet no one can think that any such interest would entitle a party to make this application. Again: it may be observed that the provision of the Constitution does not forbid the manufacture, in terms at any rate, of any article in the prison, but that no trade shall be taught there, except the manufacture of those articles the chief supply of which is imported from other States. Now the relator does not allege that he has been injured by the trade of wagon making having been taught to the convicts simply, but that he has been injured by that, and by the manufacture of wagons in the prison, which, as we have seen, the language of the Constitution does not forbid. But admitting that the object of the provision of the Constitution and the statute was what it is claimed to have been, not only to prohibit the teaching of certain trades, but the manufacture
In the latter case the Court say: “In every well constructed Government, the highest judicial authority must necessarily have a supervisory power over all inferior or subordinate tribunals, magistrates, and all others exercising public authority. If they commit errors, it will correct them. If they refuse to perform their duty, it will. compel them. In the former case, by writ of error ; in the latter, by mcmdamus.” The office sought of the writ in this case, is to restrain .the defendants from doing certain things they are alleged to have in contemplation, and directing them to undo what they have already done, in the exercise of the proper functions of their office. It appears by the answer of the defendants, that some years since 'Win. C. Pease, then agent of the State prison, entered into a contract with Davis, Austin & Co., by which ‘he agreed “to let or sell to them for .five years, commencing on or about the first day of May, 1852, the services of from twenty-five to fifty convicts confined in said prison, to be employed in the business of wagon, sleigh and carriage making in said prison, or within the walls of the yard thereof; which said number of convicts was, afterwards, by contract between said parties, increased from fifty to eighty; that, for
Whether the decision of the Agent is final or not, and in no way subject to revision, it is not' necessary to determine. It is only necessary now to say, the relator cannot obtain the relief he seeks under the writ prayed for.
Motion denied.