Ex parte Chin Yan

Municipal Ordinance—Judgment—Fine and Imprisonment.—The petitioner was convicted in the Police Court of the city and county of San Francisco under Section 33 of Order No. 1,587 of the city and county, of a misdemeanor, in visiting a place for the practice of gambling. The judgment was “ that said Chin Yan pay a fine of twenty (20) dollars, and in default of payment thereof, that said Chin Yan be imprisoned in the County Jail of this city and county for the period of ten days;” and the commitment was “for the period of ten days or until the said fine should be paid or satisfied.”

Hdd: We consider this judgment valid and lawful upon the authority of Ex parte Ellis, 54 Cal. 204. The authority given to the Sheriff to arrest and imprison the defendant for the period of ten days or “until said fine has been paid or satisfied,” authorizes the petitioner to claim his release, when the fine has been satisfied by the imprisonment, or partly by payment of money and partly by the imprisonment, estimating the latter at two dollars per day during the period of imprisonment. Such is a fair deduction from the judgment.

Id.—Constitutional Law.—The section referred to is not unconstitutional, as opposed to Subdivision 2, Section 25 of Article iv of the Constitution of 1879. Section 3 of the amendment of the consolidation act of April 25, 1863, gives full authority to the Board to pass the order under consideration and the act itself is not unconstitutional. The object of the article of the constitution relating to local legislation is to restrain the Legislature from passing laws of the character mentioned. The Legislature can authorize by general laws, under the present Constitution, ordinances of that character to be passed by a municipal corporation.

Id.—Id.—Cases Distinguished.—The Traylor Act, declared unconstitutional in Earle v. Board of Education (55 Cal. 481), was an act of the Legislature. Desmond v. Dunn, 55 Cal., 242; and McDonald v. Patterson, 54 Id. 245, have no reference to the question before us.

Id.—Id.—Unreasonable Ordinance.—Where the Legislature in terms confers upon amunicipal corporation the power to pass ordinancesof a specified and defined character, if the powerthus delegated be not in conflict with the Constitution, an ordinance passed pursuant thereto can not be impeached as invalid because it would have been regarded as unreasonable if it had been passed under the incidental powers of the corporation, or under a grant of power general in its nature. In other words, what the Legislature distinctly says may be done can not be set aside by the Courts because they may deem it unreasonable or against sound policy. But where the power to legislate on a given subject is conferred and the mode of its exercise is not prescribed, then the ordinance passed in pursuance thereof must be a reasonable exercise of the power, or it will be pronounced invalid.