75 Mo. 358 | Mo. | 1882
At the March term, 1882, of the St. Louis; criminal court, the grand jury returned an indictment' against Robert C. Pate and others therein named, charging-them with feloniously setting up and keeping a certain gambling device, adapted, devised, and designed for the-purpose of playing a certain game of chance, commonly called keno, for money; and with feloniously inducing,, enticing and permitting certain other persons by means of said gambling device to bet and play at said game of keno-for money. The defendants in said indictment filed a plea. to the jurisdiction of the criminal court, alleging that the-act of March 9th, 1881, making gambling of certain kinds - a felony, under and by virtue of which act the grand jury found and filed said indictment, was unconstitutional and* void, because the title of said act does not meet the requirements of section 28, article 4, of the constitution, and for-other reasons which it is unnecessary to notice ; that the offense charged was, therefore, a misdemeanor only, and. not a felony, and said court had no jurisdiction thereof.. After hearing said plea, and on the 1st day of May, 1882,. the criminal court made the following order: “ This day ' the court sustains the plea and, the amended plea to the-jurisdiction in each and all of the above cases, and it appearing to the court that the offenses charged in said indictments are misdemeanors, and the St. Louis court of criminal correction having exclusive jurisdiction of such cases,., it is ordered that each and all of said indictments be certified and transmitted to-th.e said St. Louis court of criminal
The peculiar character of the order made by the criminal court in sustaining the plea to its jurisdiction relieves us of the necessity of examining and deciding many points which were presented in the oral argument, and are to be found in the briefs of counsel, based upon the supposition that the indictment pending in the criminal court had been
All the objections to the validity of this law, save the one relating to the title of the act, are satisfactorily disposed of in the opinion of the judge of the criminal court, and it will be unnecessary, therefore, for us to say anything in regard to them. We will proceed to the title of the act.
An additional reason for a liberal construction of this section of the constitution is, that in the next preceding section, (§ 27, art. 4,) it is provided that no bill can be passed by the legislature until it has been reported upon by a committee and printed for the use of the members. Similar titles have been upheld in other states having constitutional provisions like our own. The constitution of Kansas provides that “No bill shall contain more than one-subject which shall be clearly expressed in -its title.” An act was passed in that state entitled “An act to amend sections 2, 4, 17, 41 and 59 of an act entitled,” etc. Speaking-of this act the supreme court of Kansas in The State v. Bankers' Association, 23 Kas. 501, said: “A certain subject, is expressed in the title, i. e., the amendment of five specific sections. So far as the act follows the title, it is without question; hut it goes beyond, and after doing all that its title intimates that it will do, it reaches out for something entirely separate and independent.” And in People ex rel. Comstock v. Judge of Superior Court, 39 Mich. 195, a statute similarly entitled, though criticised, was held to be valid; vide also County Commissioners of Dorchester Co. v. Meekins, 50 Md. 28.
The authorities, however, in our own State are conclusive upon this question. In the State v. Hanson, 73 Mo. 78, the constitutionality of an act having a title similar to that now under consideration, was upheld by this court. The discussion of the sufficiency of the title in that case was general, and there is nothing in the opinion to indicate a purpose on the part of this court to confine the ruling there made to acts passed at a revising session of the legislature for the purposes of revision. The case was not considered by this court in that aspect-. That case, too, although not citing the case of the City of Kansas v.
Reing of opinion that the title of the act of March 9th, 1881, is sufficient, and the act, therefore, constitutional, and that the offense charged in the indictment herein referred to is a felony, a peremptory writ will be awarded.