Ex parte Williams

VAN FLEET, J. Petitioner was convicted in the justice’s court of Mariposa county of a misdemeanor arising under section 537 of the Penal Code; he was fined, with the alternative of imprisonment, and failing to pay the fine went to jail. He now seeks Ms release on Imbeas corpus, assigning (1) that the complaint charged no offense under the statute, and (2) that the ■statute is unconstitutional.

1. As to the last point, the validity of the section was sustained in Ex parte Ruffin, 119 Cal. 487, and we do not regard the further objections now urged by petitioner as seriously challenging the constitutionality of the provision.

2. The proposition that the complaint is insufficient is based, we think, upon an erroneous construction of the pleading. The section of the code under which the conviction was had, which is intended to prevent frauds and impositions upon innkeepers and the like, provides:

“Section 537. Any person who obtains any food or accommodation at an inn or boarding-house without paying therefor, with intent to defraud the proprietor or manager thereof, or who obtains credit at an inn or boarding-house by the use of any false pretense, or who, after obtaining credit or accommodation at any inn or boarding-house, absconds and surrepti[330]tiously removes his baggage therefrom without paying for his food or accommodations, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”

As suggested by petitioner, the act contemplates three classes of offenders who shall be amenable to its provisions: First, those who obtain food or accommodation at such a resort without paying therefor, with intent to defraud; second, those who obtain credit thereat by the employment of any false pretense; and, third, those who after obtaining such credit or accommodation abscond and surreptitiously remove their baggage without paying their score.

The material part of the complaint filed against the petitioner was, “That said Dr. B. Williams, on or about the sixth day of February, 1898, at Mariposa, in the said county of Mariposa, state of California, by false and fraudulent promises and representations, did willfully, unlawfully and fraudulenty obtain credit for food and lodging at the boarding-house of Peter Gordon in said town, county, and state, to the extent of forty-eight dollars in value; and said Dr. B. Williams did then and there willfully and unlawfully .defraud said Peter Gordon out of such board and lodging to said value of forty-eight dollars.”