Ex parte Bohen

Citations

• 115 Cal. 372
• 47 P. 55
• 1896 Cal. LEXIS 1019

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Ordinance—Prohibiting Purchase of Cemetery Lots— Permission of Burial in Lots Purchased—Invalid Class Legislation. —A municipal ordinance not prohibiting all burials within the city limits, but assuming to prohibit further purchases of cemetery lots, and further interments for general purposes, but expressly excepting interments in such lots or plots as have been already purchased, for the use of the purchasers, or their families, and making a violation of the ordinance a misdemeanor, is unreasonable and invalid, as assuming to limit the privilege of burial to one class of citizens, and denying it to class within the same district.</p> <p>Id.—Limitation of Police Power.—The police power is to be exercised for the good of the entire public, and any restriction of the rights of the individual by virtue of this power must extend to all individuals who might exercise the right.</p> <p>Id.—Sale of Cemetery Lot—Incomplete Offense.—Even in case of a valid ordinance prohibiting further burials, and the further purchase and sale of lots for burial purposes, it seems that the mere purchase and sale of a lot in a cemetery is not a complete offense, and cannot be made the basis of a crime or misdemeanor, until the offense of burial in such lot has been committed.</p>