Refilling or selling stamped mineral water bottles, etc......... Keeping such bottles with intent to refill or sell them.. Search for bottles kept in violation of law, authorized........................................................................... Defacing marks upon wrecked property.. Floating logs or defacing marks thereon. Officer unlawfully detaining wrecked property. Fraud in affair of limited partnership... Unlawful confinement of idiots, insane persons, etc.. Taking usury.. Reconfining persons discharged upon writ. Concealing persons entitled to writ of deliverance.. ............... Innkeepers and carriers refusing to receive guests and passengers......................... Frauds on hotel keepers... Protecting civil and public rights.... Regulation of bicycle races and other contests of skill, etc.. Acrobatic exhibitions.. Contracts in relation to Indian lands. Unlawful dealing in convict-made goods.. Elevator charges.... Domestic commerce law Unlicensed peddlers.... Failure to furnish statistics to commissioner of labor. Refusal to admit inspector to mines and quarries, etc.. Hours of labor to be required......... Payment of wages.. SECTION. 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 Failure to furnish seats for female employees. No fees to be charged for services rendered by free public employment bureau.. 385-447e VIII. Misconduct and frauds in relation to insurance corpora XIII. Frauds relative to documents of title to merchandise.. 628-634 PENAL CODE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. AS AMENDED 1901. LAWS 1881, CHAPTER 676. AN ACT TO ESTABLISH A PENAL CODE. PASSED July 26, 1881; three-fifths being present. The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows: PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS. SECTION 1. Title of Code. 2. Its effect. 3. Definition of "crime." 4. Division of crimes. 5. Definition of felony. 6. Definition of misdemeanor. 7. Objects of the Penal Code. 8. Procedure. 9. Convictions must precede punishment. 10. Jury to find degree of crime. 11. General rules of construction of this act. 12. Of sections declaring crimes punishable. 13. Punishments, how determined. 14. Punishment of felonies when not fixed by statute. 15. Punishment of misdemeanors when not fixed by statute. SECTION 1. Title of Code. This act shall be known as the PENAL CODE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. This Code is intended as "a revision of prior laws in respect to crimes and their punishment, and as a substitute for the scattered and fragmentary legis lation which preceded it." People v. Jaehne, 103 N. Y. 193; 4 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 479; Matter of Hallenbeck, 65 How. Pr. 401; 1 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 437, note. And is to be construed with reference thereto. People v. Stevens, 109 N. Y. 162; People v. Richards, 108 id. 144. And with the presumption that no change was intended unless the statute is explicit and clear in that direction. People v. Palmer, 109 N. Y. 110. S. P., Fitzgerald v. Quann, 109 N. Y. 445. Crimes defined thereby and committed after, etc., must be punished according to its provisions and not otherwise. Matter of Hallenbeck, 65 How. Pr. 402; 1 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 437; McTameney Case, 30 Hun, 506; 13 Abb. N. C. 56 66 How. Pr. 75. Panishments imposed by previous acts are to be deemed repealed whenever inconsistent with this Code. Matter of Hallenbeck, 65 How. 401; 1 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 437; People v. McTameney, 30 Hun, 506; 13 Abb. N. C. 56; 66 How; Pr. 75. It must be construed in connection with provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure bearing upon the same subject. People v. Rugg, 98 N. Y. 551. § 2. Its effect.- No act or omission begun after the beginning of the day on which this Code takes effect as a law, shall be deemed criminal or punishable, except as prescribed or authorized by this Code, or by some statute of this State not repealed by it. Any act or omission begun prior to that day may be inquired of, prosecuted and punished in the same manner as if this Code had not been passed. See Fed. Const., art. 1, § 10, subd. 1. This section abolishes all common law offenses. Section 719, post, is substantially to same effect. This Code took effect Dec. 1, 1882, § 727, post. This Code contains no general clause repealing prior statutes covering the subject embraced in its provisions. People v. Jaehne, 103 N. Y. 193. Operation of, limited to subsequent offenses. People v. Raymond, 32 Hun, 123; People v. Sadler, 97 N. Y. 146; 3 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 474; Darrow v. Family Fund Society, 42 Hun, 249; Jaehne v. People, 128 U. S. 189; 6 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 237; People v. Mortimer, 46 Cal. 114. In People v. Beckwith, 108 N. Y. 67; 7 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 146, it was held, that this section does not relate to or include the evidence which may be given, or the degree of proof required to convict, and does not affect the provisions of section 181 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. But does relate to the punishment. People v. O'Neil, 109 N. Y. 261. The statute (Act 1862, chap. 374, § 3), relating to assault with intent to steal, was not repealed by this Code. People v. Bernardo, 1 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 245. But was by Act, 1886, chap. 593, p. 842. See People v. Moran, 54 Hun, 279; 7 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 334. The provisions of the Revised Statutes relative to contumacious witnesses were not superseded and abrogated by this Code. People, ex rel. McDonald, v. Keeler, 99 N. Y. 474; 2 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 108; 32 Hun, 589. The Code of Criminal Procedure (§§ 899, etc.) also creates offenses and prescribes punishments. It is a principle of universal jurisprudence that laws civil and criminal must be prospective, and cannot have a retroactive effect. Van Valkenburgh ▼. Torrey, 7 Cow. 252; Sayre v. Wisner, 8 Wend. 661; Van Rensselaer v. Wisner, 12 id. 490. See 5 Crim. L. Mag. 325; 20 Am. Law Reg. (N. S.) 681. In Kring v. State, 107 U. S. 221; 27 Alb. L. J. 347, it was held, that any law is an ex post facto law within the meaning of the Constitution, passed after the commission of a crime charged against a defendant, which in relation to that offense or its consequence alters the situation of the party to his disadvantage; and no one can be criminally punished in this country except according to a law prescribed for his government by the sovereign authority before the imputed offense was committed and which existed as a law at the time. It was also held in the same case that the distinction between retrospective laws which affect the remedy or mode of procedure, and those which operate directly on the offense was unsound, where, in the latter case, they affect to his serious disadvantage any substantial right which the party charged with crime had under the law as it stood when the offense was committed. An ex post facto law is one which imposes a punishment for an act which was not punishable at the time it was committed; or imposes additional punishment to that then prescribed; or changes the rules of evidence by which less or different testimony is sufficient to convict than was then required. Cummings v. State, 4 Wall. 277; Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 388, 390. Although the prohibition of the Constitution to pass an ex post facto law is aimed at criminal cases, it cannot be evaded by giving a civil form to that which is in substance criminal. Cummings v. State, 4 Wall. 277. But see Blann v. State, 39 Ala. 353. A statute which simply enlarges the class of persons who may be competent to testify, is not ex post facto in its application to offenses previously committed, Such alterations relate to modes of procedure only, which the State may regu late at pleasure and in which no one can be said to have a vested right. Hopt v. Territory, 110 U. S. 574. In Marion v. State, 20 Neb. 233; 57 Am. Rep. 825, it was held, that where the law in force at the time of the commission of the alleged offense provided that juries should be the judges of the law, but which law was repealed before the trial, that it was competent for the legislature to make such change, and no error for the trial court to refuse to instruct the jury in the language of the prior law. In People v. Mortimer, 46 Cal. 114, it is said: "It is clear, therefore, that no constitutional difficulty would be encountered in requiring past offenses to be tried under new forms of procedure; and it is equally clear that if such offenses are to be tried only under the old forms, and later offenses under the new, it would or might create endless confusion in legal proceedings.'" |