Hardee v. Brown

Citations

• 56 Fla. 377

Syllabus

<p>1. Where a writ of error returnable before the Supreme Court is issued by the Clerk of the Circuit Court, it is not necessary to formally file the writ in the Circuit Court. The original writ should be returned to the Supreme Court.</p> <p>2. Habeas Corpus cannot be used to take the place, or to serve the purpose, of a writ of error to determine whether a judgment is erroneous, when the Court has jurisdiction of the person and the conviction is of an offense under the law and within the jurisdiction of the Court to try.</p> <p>3. A person held in custody under a sentence of a municipal court upon a conviction on a charge based on an ordinance alleged to be void, may test the validity of the ordinance in habeas corpus proceedings, and may be discharged from custody if the ordinance is void.</p> <p>4. Municipalities are legal entities established for local governmental purposes, and they can exercise only such authority as is conferred by express or implied provisions of law. The existence of authority to act cannot be assumed, but 'it should be made to appear. When the authority to act appears, the correctness of the action taken thereunder may be presumed until the contrary is shown.</p> <p>5. Every act of a municipality through its ordinances should be within the powers expressly or impliedly conferred, should be based upon a proper classification of subjects, should be reasonable and applicable alike to all under practically similar conditions and circumstances, and shopld not violate any provision or principle of law.</p> <p>6. There is no express limitation upon the power of the legislature to provide for levying a tax on licenses; but such power should not be so exercised as to deprive any person of property without due process of law, or so as to deny to any person the equal protection of the.laws.</p> <p>7. As contemplated by the constitution the effect of the provisions of the general license statute that any city of five thousand inhabitants may impose u