167 Ind. 199 | Ind. | 1906
Appellee was charged by indictment with the crime of perjury, in making an affidavit required by
The assignment of errors calls in question the action of the court in sustaining the motion to quash as to each count of the indictment.
Each count charged that the alleged perjury was committed by the appellee in making an affidavit of non-collusion, as required by the law of the State, as bidder for the construction of a free gravel road, under the act of 1901 (Acts 1901, p. 449, §§6899-6913 Burns 1901) and the act amending the same (Acts 1903, p. 294), in a proceeding before the Board of Commissioners of the County of. Vigo, State of Indiana. It is claimed by the State that the affidavit made by appellee was required by the provisions of sections thirty-seven and forty-two of the act entitled: “An act concerning county business,” commonly called the county reform act. Acts 1899, p. 343, §§5594q1, 5594v1 Burns 1901.
Section 5594q1, supra, provides that “in all cases in which the board of commissioners are now or may hereafter be authorized by law to contract for the execution of any public undertaking” said board shall, among other things, cause proper plans, models, etc., of the proposed work to be prepared and filed in the office of the auditor of the county, and cause notice to be given inviting sealed proposals for doing such work. If the cost of the work does not exceed $2,000, such notice shall be published once each week in two newspapers published in the county, but if the cost of such work exceeds $2,000, such publication shall be for two weeks in such newspapers; and it also provides: “Further publication may also be made when deemed for the public interest.”
Section 5594v1, supra, provides: “In all cases where any county officer is authorized by this act to receive bids
This section was, with the exception of the affidavit of non-collusion, a substantial reenactment of section one of the act approved March 14, 1877 (Acts 1877 [s. s.], p. 29, §4246 R. S. 1881). The last-named act provided that “no bid for the building or repairing of any court-house, jail, poor asylum, bridge, fence, or other county building or work'shall be received or entertained by the board of commissioners of any county of this State, unless such bid shall be accompanied by a good and sufficient bond,” etc.
It is clear that while the construction of free gravel roads by hoards of commissioners, under the laws of this State, is a “county work,” yet such work is neither the building of a court-house, jail, county or township building, bridge or monument, and does not come within the meaning of any of "the kinds of work mentioned in said title, nor is it a “matter properly connected therewith.” Any provision, therefore, in said section four of said act requiring an affidavit and bond from a bidder before filing his bid for any other county work than that mentioned in said title, is void under §19, article 4, of the state Constitution. It follows that the part of said section four which requires the affidavit of non-collusion and bond from bidders for the construction of “county work,” which, as we have shown, includes the construction of free gravel roads, is void because the subject thereof is not expressed in the title, nor is it a “matter properly connected therewith,” as required by said section of the state Constitution. Mewherter v. Price (1858), 11 Ind. 199; Dixon v. Poe (1902), 159 Ind. 492, 494, 495, 60 L. R. A. 308, 95 Am. St. 309; Voss v. Waterloo Water Co. (1904), 163 Ind. 69, 92, 66 L. R. A. 95, 106 Am. St. 201.
Judgment affirmed.