29 Minn. 216 | Minn. | 1882
The defendant was indicted under Gen. St. 1878, c. 94, § 34, for manslaughter in the fourth degree, committed on the tenth of January, 1881. By act of the legislature, passed February 17, 1881, (Laws 1881, c. 62,) entitled “An act to amend section 34 of chapter 94 of the General Statutes of 1878, relating to [punishment of] manslaughter in the fourth degree,” the statute under which the indictment was found had been amended by increasing the punishment. Section 2 of this amendatory act reads as follows: “See. 2. This act shall not extend to any act done or offence committed prior to the passage hereof, but the provisions of law now in force prescribing the punishment for murder in the fourth degree shall continue in force as to all such offences committed prior to the passage hereof.”
The only question in this case is whether under this section the original statute is continued in force for the purpose of the punishment of offences committed prior to the passage of the amendatory act. It is perfectly apparent that the only doubt on the subject, if doubt there be, is caused by the use of the word “murder,” by mistake, for “manslaughter.” It is perfectly clear, both from the face of the act itself and from the statute amended, that the legislature meant “manslaughter” in the fourth degree, and not “murder. ” Such being the case, a court has a right to construe the act in accordance with the plain and manifest intention of the legislature. If the mistake is apparent upon the face of the statute, which may be corrected by other language in the act itself, such mistake is not fatal, and the clear legislative will must prevail. That the legislature intended by
It is urged that this is contrary to the rule that penal statutes must be construed strictly. By this rule nothing more is meant than that penal statutes shall not, by what may be thought their spirit and equity, be extended to offences other than those which are specifically and clearly described and provided for. The reason of the rule is that the law will not allow of constructive offences or arbitrary punishments. Therefore penal statutes are taken strictly and literally only in the point of defining and setting down the fact and the punishment., and not generally, “in words that are but circumstances and conveyances in the putting of the case.” Smith, Stat. Construction, § 741.
But the present case is not within this rule. We are not extending the definition of the crime of manslaughter in the fourth degree by construction, so as to include acts or offences not included within the letter and spirit of'the statute, nor enlarging the punishment of the crime beyond what the statute expressly declares. There is no controversy as to what constituted this crime, or as to what its punishment was under the original statute; nor that the acts charged in the indictment constituted this crime, and were punishable at the time they were committed. The only question to determine is whether, in enacting the amendatory act, the legislature intended to save the former law for the purpose of the punishment of prior offences. In
Therefore, in answer to the questions certified up by the court below, we hold that defendant’s demurrer to the indictment was properly overruled.
Order affirmed.
Vanderburgh, J., before whom this case was heard in the district court, took no part in the decision of this appeal.