15 N.M. 35 | N.M. | 1909
OPINION OF THE COURT.
(The essential facts appear in the opinion.) — Of the errors assigned by the defendant, one is of special importance, since it raises the question whether a term of the Sixth Judicial District Court for Torrance County can he legally held at Estancia, where the defendant was convicted of nrarder in Hie second degree at what purported to be a term of said court held in June, 1907.
Torrance County was created by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, hv Chapter 70, of the Laws of 1903, and Progreso was made the county seat; by chapter 2 of the Acts of 1905, the assembly -attempted to make Estancia the county scat. This, the appellant claims, is in violation of the “Springer Act,” so called. C. L. 1897, p. -15. Its language on the point is as follows: “The legislatures of the Territories of the United States shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases; that is to say; * * * Locating or changing county seats.” By act of Congress approved July 19, 1888, (C. L. 1897, p. (50), it was declared that the Springer Act should not he construed to prohibit the creation by Territorial Legislatures of new counties and the location of the county seats thereof. That the statute, chapter 2, 1905, is a local or special law, cannot he doubted, and, indeed, the contrary is not claimed in the brief for the Territory. See Note to State v. Sayre, Yol, 4 Am. & Eng. An. Cases, p. 659; Codlin v. County Commissioners, 9 N. M. 565. It is however suggested in the brief of the attorney general that the act in question was really the “re-establishnrent” of Torrance County. But the assembly clearly excluded that idea by providing in section one of the statute in question, that the act — chapter 70, laws of 1903, “is hereby amended as follows:” not that it or any part of it is repealed. In section 6 of the later statute it is explicitly declared that no section of 'the original act “not herein expressly referred to shall be affected”, and that “all the officers of said county of Torrance chosen at the last general election shall hold their offices as if this act had not been passed.” Certainly ■a county which has once been established or created cannot be again created until it has first ceased to exist. It is significant in this connection, that the same assembly, by chapter 10, acts of 1905, “abolished” the County of Sandoval, and then proceeded to “create” a county of the same name, with the county seat at Bernalillo instead of at Sandoval where it had befoie that been. Further, it is not without a bearing on the intention of the .assembly in enacting the law in question that there was then in effect a general law of the Territory (section 630, C. L. 1897) providing for the changing of county seats, and that it was amended by the same assembly. (Chapter 119, Acts of 1905).
The other assignments of error do not call for consideration separately.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.