32 A.2d 477 | Md. | 1943
The State has brought this appeal to defend the constitutional validity of "General Rule Covering the Use of Streets," in the Traffic Ordinance of Baltimore City. The challenged section provides: "Reasonable care to be used. Nothing contained herein or omitted herefrom shall be construed or held to relieve any person using, or traveling or being upon any street, for any purpose whatever, from exercising all reasonable care to avoid or prevent injury through collision with all other persons and vehicles." Ordinances of Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 1908-09, Ord. 139; Baltimore City Code, 1927 Ed., Art. 4, Sec. 57.
Harry Magaha was indicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City for violating this section. The specific charge in the indictment is that the defendant, on October 24, 1942, while operating a trackless trolley westbound on Federal Street, failed to exercise all reasonable care to avoid and prevent injury through collision with the motor ambulance being driven northbound on Wolfe Street by John Thomas Riley. The defendant *125 demurred to the indictment, and the appeal was taken from an order sustaining the demurrer and quashing the indictment.
The Criminal Court considered the section unconstitutional on account of failure to fix an ascertainable standard of guilt. It is an established doctrine of constitutional law that a penal statute creating a new offense must set forth a reasonably ascertainable standard of guilt and must be sufficiently explicit to enable a person of ordinary intelligence to ascertain with a fair degree of precision what acts it intends to prohibit, and therefore what conduct on his part will render him liable to its penalties. A statute which either commands or forbids the doing of an act in terms so vague that persons of ordinary intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the constitutional guarantee of due process of law. Commonwealth v. Zasloff,
Following the authority of the Nash case, the Supreme Court sustained a conviction of manslaughter under an Oregon statute providing that every person operating a motor vehicle shall drive "in a careful and prudent manner, * * * and in no case at a rate of speed that will endanger the property of another, or the life and limb of any person. Laws Or. 1921, c. 371, Sec. 2 (16);Miller v. Oregon,
The appellee cited United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co.,
The public policy of the State of Maryland in favor of criminal prosecution for reckless driving on the public highways of the State has been declared by the Legislature through the last twenty-nine years in the enactment of the statute making it a criminal offense to operate a motor vehicle recklessly or at a rate of speed greater than is reasonable and proper, having regard to the width, traffic and use of the highway, or so as to endanger the property and life or limb of any person. Acts of 1914, Chap. 832; Code, 1939, Art. 56, § 196(1). It is for the legislative branch of government to enact such measures as it deems desirable for the advancement of the public welfare, but the judiciary is the ultimate authority to determine whether constitutional restraints have been violated, confining itself to the question, not of legislative policy, but of legislative power. We adopt the rule supported by the great weight of authority in the United States that a statute prohibiting under penalty the driving of a motor vehicle on a public highway at a speed greater than is reasonable and proper, or so as to endanger life, limb or property is not void for indefiniteness.Commonwealth v. Pentz,
Like the statute forbidding reckless operation of motor vehicles in this State, the section of the Baltimore City Traffic Ordinance requiring reasonable care in the operation of other kinds of vehicles is a salutary measure, for it covers those cases where a law prescribing a maximum speed limit is not adequate. Reasonable certainty in view of the conditions is all that is required of a penal statute, and the courts will always give effect to the legislative intent when possible. In a Tennessee case, where an Act of the Legislature provided that "nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to authorize the sale of vinous or spirituous liquors on Sunday," Acts Tenn. 1846, c. 90, Sec. 3, the Supreme Court of Tennessee held that when the Legislature declares that a certain thing may be done which before that time was unlawful, and adds a proviso that nothing in the statute shall be so construed as to permit some matter embraced in the general provision to be done, this is a prohibition of such act, although before that time it was lawful.State v. Eskridge, 1 Swan, Tenn., 413. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, after providing in the Traffic Ordinance that "nothing contained herein or omitted herefrom" shall relieve any person from exercising all reasonable care, declared that any person violating any provision or regulation therein shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not less than $1 and not more than $10. Baltimore City Code, Art. 4, § 61. It is plain that the intention of the Mayor and City Council was to make a failure to exercise reasonable care a misdemeanor.
It is desirable, of course, that penal statutes and ordinances should be expressed in language as specific as the subject matter will permit, but it is obviously impossible to define some types of crime by a detailed description of *130
all possible cases that may arise. The prohibited act may be characterized by a general term without definition, if the term has a settled common-law meaning and a commonly understood meaning which does not leave a person of ordinary intelligence in doubt as to its purport, even though there may be in the definition of the term an element of degree as to which estimates of reasonable men might differ. State v. Andrews,
From this conclusion it follows that there is no merit in the allegation of the demurrer that the indictment is too vague to inform the defendant of the nature of the accusation. Since the indictment charges that the defendant violated the section, and also alleges the specific negligent act within the statutory description, there can be no doubt that the indictment is sufficiently definite. Undoubtedly an indictment must inform the defendant of the nature of the charge against him with reasonable certainty, so that he can prepare his defense, and also be able to plead the judgment thereafter as a bar to any subsequent prosecution for the same offense. But an indictment *132
charging the defendant with an act coming within the statutory description in the substantial words of the statute is sufficient. Ledbetter v. United States,
For these reasons we must reverse the order of the court below sustaining the demurrer and quashing the indictment.
Order reversed and case remanded, with costs.