Mincher v. State

Miller, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This case is brought up as upon writ of error. The plaintiff in error having been appointed the officer of registration under the Act of 1882, ch. 22, for the twelfth ward of the City of Baltimore, was indicted for violating several provisions of that statute. The indictment contained seven counts, to each of which a general demurrer ²³¹ was entered and overruled.

At the trial he was found guilty of the charge contained in the fifth count, and acquitted of the charges contained in all the others. So that the single question before us is as to the legal sufficiency of this fifth count. The penal clause of the Act involved is that part of the 3áth section which makes it a misdemeanor punishable with fine or imprisonment or both, “if any officer of registration shall do any act which is by this Act forbidden to he by him done, or shall omit to do any act which is by this Act required to he by him done.” The fifth count is founded upon- that part of the 21st section which requires each officer of registration within three days after the expiration of his September sitting, and within the same time after his October sitting, to “make, • complete and publish two alphabetical lists, one of which shall comprise ihe names of those persons whom” he has “stricken from” the registry of qualified voters, and the other “shall comprise the names and residences of the persons whom” he has “newly registered as qualified voters” at his preceding sitting, and also the names of those whom the Judges have ordered to he registered, and “shall cause said respective lists to he published by handbills posted in such public places as he may select in his election district or election precinct.” The count charges in substance that “John E. Mincher being then and there the officer of registration for the twelfth ward of said city, duly appointed and qualified, unlaiufully did make, complete and publish an alphabetical list within three days after the expiration of his September sitting” in the year 1885, “which said list purported to comprise the names of those persons whom he had stricken from the registry of voters of the first precinct of the said twelfth ward, and did cause the said list to he published by hand-bills posted in divers public places in said ward, which said list made, completed and published by him as aforesaid, unlawfully comprised, besides ²³² the names stricken from said registry of voters by him as aforesaid, the names of divers duly registered and qualified voters of said precinct of said ward not strieJeen from said registry of voters, as said list falsely stated and as .he the said John E. Mincher then and there well Icneio,” with the usual conclusion. In disposing of the case this Court is confined to a determination of the points or questions of law, designated by the plaintiff in error in his petition for the writ, by' the decision of which he feels aggrieved.

Rule 1 Respecting Appeals. These are four in number,, and we shall consider them in their order. 1st. The first is in substance that the alleged conduct of the officer of registration as set forth in this fifth count is not an offence under section 21 taken in connection with section 34, nor under any other section of the Registration Act of 1882. But we do not think this point is well taken.

The Constitution (Art. 1, sec. 5,) required the General Assembly to provide by law for a uniform registration of the names of all the voters in the State, and made such registration conclusive evidence to the judges of election of the right of every person thus registered to vote, and declared that no person shall vote at any election unless his name appears in the list of registered voters. The law of 1882. is the last general Act passed in pursuance of this requirement, and it repeals all previous laws on the same subject inconsistent therewith. A statute of this character, dealing as it does with the right of suffrage, is of the utmost importance to all the citizens of the State. One of the great objects sought to be attained, as well by the framers of tire Constitution, as by the Legislature, manifestly was the securing of fair and honest elections by means of a system of registration of voters.

The statute then must be construed by the Courts in the light of this manifest legislative intention, and all its directions to, and requirements of, the officers who are to execute it, must be regarded as important, and as having this object in view. ²³³ When, therefore, the registration officers were required by this 21st section to make out and publish lists which shall comprise the names of those they had stricken from the registry at their previous sittings, the Legislature unquestionably meant that such lists should be true and accurate lists of the names thus stricken off, and not false and misleading lists including not only the names stricken off, but the names of others who had not been thus stricken off, and who were duly registered and qualified voters. But this latter is precisely such a list as this count charges that the plaintiff in error made out and published. The charge is (and the demurrer admits it to be true,) that in the discharge of his duties under this section, he made out and published a list which, while it purported to be a list of those stricken off, comprised also the names of divers duly registered and qualified voters who had not been stricken off as said list falsely stated. The charge moreover is that he did this knoioingly, that is that he well knew that those whom he had thus publicly represented as having been stricken off, were still on the registry and were duly qualified voters, so that there could have been no mere clerical error or innocent mistake in making out the list.

The inevitable conclusion, therefore, is that he thus acted from a bad motive, and in order to