City of Seattle v. Chin Let

Citations

• 19 Wash. 38
• 52 P. 324
• 1898 Wash. LEXIS 313

Syllabus

<p>CONSTITUTIONAL LAW — PROHIBITION OF LOTTERIES — MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS— PENALTIES FOR MISDEMEANORS— PROSECUTIONS IN NAME OF CITY — SCOPE OF PENAL ORDINANCES.</p> <p>The constitutional provision (art. 2, § 24) that “the legislature shall never authorize any lottery” is mandatory and self-executing and prohibitory of lotteries for any purpose, charitable or otherwise.</p> <p>The provision in Penal Code, § 139 (Bal. Code, § 7259), permitting lotteries for charitable purposes, although enacted prior to the framing of the donstitution, falls within the constitutional prohibition against lotteries, and is therefore invalid.</p> <p>Where a state law merely prescribes the maximum penalty for the punishment of misdemeanors at a fine of $500 or imprisonment for not more than one year and specifies no minimum penalty, a city ordinance fixing a minimum penalty of $20 for the punishment of like offenses does not conflict with the constitutional provision that city charters shall be subject to the control of general laws, nor with the charter provision that punishment for violation of the penal ordinances of the city “shall in no case exceed the punishment provided for oy the laws of the State of Washington for misdemeanors.”</p> <p>Prosecutions for the violation of municipal ordinances may properly be conducted in the name of the municipality, as the constitutional provision requiring all prosecutions to be conducted in the name of the state applies only to those instituted on account of the violation of the general laws of the state, and has no application to the infraction of municipal ordinances.</p> <p>Where a city is by its charter expressly authorized to provide by ordinance for the punishment of all practices dangerous to public safety or health and make all regulations necessary for the preservation of public morality within its limits, it is not restricted in defining offenses of that character to the exact scope of state laws updn like subjects.</p>