State v. Norris

Alvey, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. It appears from the record in this case that the defendants in error were indicted in the Circuit Court for Charles County, at the May term thereof, 1888, for the violation of the provisions of the Act of 1888, ch. 362, entitled “An Act to add a new section to Article 30 of the Code of Public General Laws, title ‘ Crimes and Punishments/ sub-title ‘ Rivers,’ to come in after section one hundred and seventy-one.” The defendants demurred to the indictment, and the demurrer was sustained by the Court, and the defendants were discharged. The State has brought the case here as upon writ of error, but has assigned no other or more specific cause of error than simply that the demurrer was sustained to the indictment. Upon what ground, or in what respect the indictment was adjudged to be ⁹⁵ insufficient, the record wholly fails to disclose.

And because of this defect in the assignment of error, and the total non-observance of Rule 1, (Code of 1888, Art. 5, sec. 4,) prescribed for the regulation of the manner of bringing into this Court cases as upon writ of error, the defendants have moved to dismiss the assignment of error, as being wholly insufficient to entitle this Court to review the judgment of the Court below. But notwithstanding the supposed defect in the record, and the motion to dismiss founded thereon, the Attorney-General and the counsel for the defendants have joined in a request to this Court to express its opinion as to the real question designed to he raised by the demurrer. And they inform us that the ground of the demurrer and of the judgment of the Court below Avas the supposed unconstitutionality of the Act of Assembly, for the violation of which the indictment Avas found, because of the insufficient description of the subject-matter of the Act, in the title thereof, under that provision of the Constitution of the State, sec. 29 of Article 3, which provides that “every law enacted by the General Assembly shall embrace but one subject, and that shall he described in its title.” The subject of the Act is the prevention of dredging, taking and carrying away, of sand and gravel from the bed of the Potomac River, and prescribing the punishment for the violation of the provisions of the Act. What the title of the Act is we have already recited.

And it certainly requires a very liberal construction of