Ex parte Murphy

Citations

• 27 Tex. Ct. App. 492
• 11 S.W. 487
• 1889 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 72

Syllabus

<p>1. Practice—Construction of Statutes.—In construing statutory enactments the courts must so interpret the legislative intent as to harmonize the provisions of the act with the Constitution, if it can be reasonably done.</p> <p>2. Same—Terms of the District Court of Karnes County—Constitutionality of a Statute.—The relator was convicted of a felony at a term of the district court of Karnes county which, under the law of 1885, began on the eighth day of April, 1889. Seeking by habeas corpus to avoid the execution of the sentence then pronounced against him, he shows that, by the act of April 3, 1889, to which an emergency clause was appended, the time of the holding of the terms of the said district court was changed to the fourth Monday in March:—his contention being that, by reason of the said enactment of April 3, 1889, he was tried and convicted at a time when a legal term of the said district court could not be held. Held that, notwithstanding the emergency clause appended to the act of April 3,1889, the said act did not operate to invalidate the term of the court which began on April 8. The sa'd act is constitutional, but, the emergency clause to the contrary notwithstanding, it did not take effect until such time as would not deprive any county in the judicial district of its constitutional right to two terms per annum of the district court.</p>