On the 4th of April, 1903, the grand jury of Buchanan county, Missouri, returned an indictment against the plaintiff in error, charging him with setting up, in said county, on March 31, 1903, certain gambling tables and devices, two of which were a chuck-a-luck table and a crap table.
On arraignment, on April 6, 1903, a plea of not guilty was entered, which was withdrawn on June 27th,
On August 12, 1904, a writ of error was sued out in this court and the clerk of the lower court, in obedience thereto, has forwarded a certified copy of the record proper in said cause, which is now before the court for consideration.
OPINION.
The same questions, with the exception noted, involved in this case were decided by this court in State v. Rosenblatt, 185 Mo. 114, and State v. Etchman, 184 Mo. 193, except the one proposition now presented in this case as to the constitutionality of the act creating the criminal court of Buchanan county. The act creating the criminal court of Buchanan county will be found in Revised Statutes 1899, section 1, page 2568. It provides: “Pursuant to sections one and thirty-one of article 6 of the Constitution, and to a notice” (set out in full) “a court of record is hereby established in the county of Buchanan, said county having a population exceeding 50,000 inhabitants, and to be designated and called the criminal court of Buchanan county.”
There is but one proposition presented in the record in this cause, and that is embraced in the contention of plaintiff in error that the act as herein noted establishing the Buchanan County Criminal Court is void and unconstitutional. The grounds upon which this contention is predicated may be briefly stated as follows:
1. Because it is in conflict with subdivision 2 of section 53, article 4 of the Constitution, which provides: “The General Assembly shall not pass any local or special law . . . regulating the affairs of counties, cities, townships, wards or school districts.”
3. Because it is in conflict with subdivision 17, section 53, article 4 of the Constitution, providing that no local or special law shall be passed “regulating the practice or jurisdiction of, or changing the rules of evidence in any judicial proceeding or inquiry before courts, justices of the peace, sheriffs, commissioners, arbitrators or other tribunals, or providing or changing method for the collection of debts, or the enforcing of judgments, or prescribing the effect of judicial sales of real estate.”
, 4. Because it is in conflict with subdivision 32, section 53, article 4 of the Constitution, which prohibits the passage of any local or special law, “where a general law can be made applicable; and whether a general law could have been made applicable in any case is hereby declared a judicial question.”
Learned counsel for plaintiff in error has presented the question involved in this controversy in its strongest light, and it is not out of place to say that about all has been said in his oral argument and brief now before us that can be said upon this proposition; yet, after a careful consideration of all the authorities, we are unable to give our assent to the contention so ably presented by counsel.
The origin of the power in the legislative branch of the government of this State to create and establish criminal courts is found in section 1, article 6 of the Constitution, which provides: “The judicial power of the State, as to matters of law and equity, except as in this Constitution otherwise provided, shall be vested in the Supreme Court, the St. Louis Court of Appeals, circuit courts, criminal courts, probate courts, county courts and municipal corporation courts.” Following
It is apparent that while section 31, article 5, as above noted, limits the power of the General Assembly in respect to the establishment of criminal courts, yet it is equally clear that it fully recognizes the power of the General Assembly to establish such courts in counties having the required poulation. We have, then, as applicable to the proposition now under consideration, first, a constitutional provision vesting the judicial power of the State in certain designated courts, among them, criminal courts; secondly, by a provision in the same Constitution we have a full and express recognition of the power of the General Assembly to establish criminal courts in counties having a population exceeding 50,000.
The act of the General Assembly establishing the Buchanan County Criminal Court was enacted in pursuance of the constitutional provisions above referred to, and the fair and reasonable interpretation of such provision as applicable to the grant of power to the • General Assembly to pass the act creating such court must furnish the solution of the proposition now confronting us.
This leads us to inquire as to what rule of construction should be adopted in the interpretation of the constitutional provisions involved in this proceeding. After diligent search we are unable to find any rule which is more practical than the one announced by that eminent jurist and author, Mr. Story, in his work upon the Constitution. He thus states it:
“Every word employed in the Constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obvious and common-sense*654 meaning, unless the context furnishes some ground to control, qualify, or enlarge it. Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness or judicial research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings. The people make them, the people adopt them, the people must be supposed to read them, with the help of common sense, and cannot- be presumed to admit in them any recondite meaning or any extraordinary gloss.” [1 Story, Const. (5 Ed.), sec. 451.]
The General Assembly of this State, fully recognizing the power granted by the organic law of this State to create and establish criminal courts, in harmony with the rule as announced by Mr. Story, proceeded in a practical way to exercise such power and put the constitutional provisions into full force by the creation and establishment of the Buchanan County Criminal Court, which county, it is conceded, had a population of more than 50,000.
It is insisted by plaintiff in error that the act creating the Buchanan County Criminal Court is a local or special law, and is in conflict with subdivision 32 of section 53, article 4 of the Constitution, which prohibits the passage of any local or special law where a general law can be made applicable. In other words, to re-state the contention in this cause, it is urged that the only way in which the General Assembly can exercise the power recognized by the Constitution to establish criminal courts is by an enactment establishing and creating criminal courts in every county in the State having a population of more than 50,000. We are unable to agree with counsel upon this insistence. We are unwilling to believe that the framers of the Constitution, in recognizing the power of the General Assembly to establish criminal courts in counties having a popula
Buchanan county had a population of more than 50,000, and the act assailed in this proceeding, creating the Buchanan County Criminal Court, was simply appropriate legislation, in the exercise of a recognized power by the Constitution, and which the Constitution by its terms contemplated would be exercised by the
In Kenefick v. St. Louis, 127 Mo. l. c. 10, Barclay, J., very clearly and concisely announced the true rule as to legislation of this charater. He said: “Legislation which is necessary or appropriate to carry into effect a positive command of the organic law, or is required or directly contemplated by its terms, cannot justly be held to be either special or local within the true intent and meaning of the Constitution. Legislation of that description is, indeed, merely the machinery to put the Constitution into full force.” To the same effect is Spaulding v. Brady, 128 Mo. l. c. 658. Macfarlane, J., speaking for the court in that case, said: “ The doctrine has been recognized by this court that legislation which is authorized by the Constitution itself cannot be regarded as loal or special, within the meaning of the constitutional prohibition, though its application is purely local. [State ex rel. v. Walton, 69 Mo. 556; Kenefick v. St. Louis, 127 Mo. 1, and cases cited.] The principle contained in the observation of Judge Lewis, in State ex rel. v. Shields, 4 Mo. App. 259, that ‘no law can be either local or special, within the meaning of the Constitution, which results directly or indirectly from a specific constitutional requirement,’ is the sound basis upon which these decisions rests.”
The command of the Constitution is that the judicial power of the State shall be vested in certain courts, including criminal courts. This requirement contemplates that the legislative branch of the State government will make appropriate provisions in creating and establishing courts in which such judicial power is to be vested. “No law can be either special or local, within the meaning of the Constitution, which results directly or indirectly from a specific constitutional requirement.” [Ewing v. Hoblitzelle, 85 Mo. l. c. 74; State ex rel. v. Shields, 4 Mo. App. 259; Whallon v. Ingham
' The proposition involved in this case is by no means a new one. The precise question here presented has been in judgment before this court. In Ex parte Renfrow, 112 Mo. 591, the constitutionality of the creation of the criminal court of Greene county was challenged. While the proposition in this cause was not thoroughly presented in the briefs of counsel, nor was the question fully reviewed by this court in the decision of that case, however, it was suggested in the briefs that the act establishing the Greene County Criminal Court was violative of the provisions of the Constitution in regard to special legislation. Responding to that suggestion this court said: “There is nothing in the suggestion that the act in question is obnoxious to the provisions of the Constitution in regard to special legislation. The Legislature plainly has power to provide for a criminal court in any county of the State having a population exceeding fifty thousand.”
In State ex rel. v. Yancy, 123 Mo. 391, the constitutionality of the act creating the Greene County Criminal Court was directly involved. The question was fully presented in the briefs of counsel. This court, speaking through Burgess, J., fully responded to the contentions of counsel in that case. In discussing the proposition he said: ‘ ‘ The act in question is in no sense special or local within the meaning of the Constitution because of the-fact that it creates a court at one particular location. The same could as well be said with respect to all other courts in the State, to which all persons, without regard to habitation, appeal for the
The criminal court of Buchanan county is by no means a mere county court. As was said in State ex rel. Hughlett v. Hughes, “It is pre-eminently a State court, affecting in its operations all the citizens of the State, deriving its power directly from the organic law of the State and laws passed by the Legislature in pursuance thereof.” While it may be said that the territory in which the court is held is limited, every citizen of the State is interested in the administration of the law, and the offenses of which the court has jurisdiction are those presumptively that affect the peace and dignity of the entire State. It is in truth and in fact a criminal court of the State of Missouri, and in no sense is it to be classed as a local court, nor is the law which created it a special or local law within the meaning of the provisions of the Constitution.
Counsel for plaintiff in error earnestly insists that the criminal court created by the act involved in this proceeding was not in pursuance of an express command of the Constitution, and undertakes to draw a distinction between the enactment of a law in obedience to an express command of the Constitution and one enacted in pursuance of an implied grant of power. As applicable ' to this case we are of the opinion that no such distinction exists. While the constitutional provisions in respect to the establishment of criminal courts do not expressly command the Legislature to create such courts, that they
The cases of State v. Hill, 147 Mo. 63, and Ashbrook v. Schaub, 160 Mo. 107, do not conflict with the principles announced in Ex parte Renfrow, and State ex rel. v. Yancy, nor with the conclusions as announced in the ease at bar. An examination .of the Hill and Ash-brook cases cited by plaintiff in error makes it manifest that the questions involved in those cases are entirely dissimilar to the proposition presented by the record in this cause. The validity of the act creating the Buchanan County Criminal Court was in no way assailed or challenged. The only question presented by these cases was the amendment to the act establishing the criminal court of Buchanan county, approved March 1, 1897, which undertook to empower the judge of the criminal court of Buchanan county, when called upon, to preside and try causes pending in the circuit courts of the State. "With the announcement of the conclusions that this amendment was in conflict with the Constitution which prohibited the enactment of a special law where a general law could be made applicable, we are entirely satisfied, but that is not this case. That amendment was clearly violative of the constitutional provisions noted, for the reason that it undertook to select one judge of a criminal court of this State and confer upon him powers not given to any other judge of the criminal courts of the State. It will be observed that this amendment does not rest upon the same foun
Upon the remaining proposition urged by counsel for plaintiff in error, “that the act is unconstitutional
The validity of the act establishing the Buchanan County Criminal Court has for many years been fully recognized by the Bench and Bar, .as well as the people of this State. It is, therefore, important that wé" be not unmindful of the repeated admonition to courts, when they are called upon to pronounce the invalidity of an act of the Legislature passed with all the forms and ceremonies requisite to give it force, that they approach the question with great caution. The presumption is in favor of the constitutionality of this act, and before this court would be warranted in holding it invalid because in conflict with the Constitution, it should be satisfied of its invalidity beyond a reasonable doubt. [Ewing v. Hoblitzelle, 85 Mo. 64; Lynch v. Murphy, 119 Mo. 163; State v. Addington, 77 Mo. 110; State ex rel. v. Railroad, 48 Mo. 470.]
We have thus given expression to our views upon the validity of the act creating the Buchanan County Criminal Court, which results in the conclusion that such act is a valid and constitutional law, and that the criminal court of Buchanan county, organized in pursuance of it, is a legally constituted tribunal.
The judgment in this cause should be affirmed, and it is so ordered.