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39 La. Ann. 231

State v. Smith

Supreme Court of Louisiana

Decided February 15, 1887

Supreme Court of Louisiana · decided 1887-02-15

<p>The Supreme Court has no iurisdicfcion oi' an appeal taken by the State from a judgment quashing an information for an offense punishable by fine, or in default, by imprisonment or otherwise than at hard labor, as, in such a ease, no fine exceeding $300 can possibly bavebeen actually imposed, which is the constitutional requirement.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1887-02-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently December 1949

4 state decisions

201887189019001910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Pocuá, J.

¶2The State appeals from a judgment quashing an in*232formation against the accused for beeping a grog or tippling shop and retailing spirituous liquors without a license.

¶3The penalty prescribed by law for such an offense is a fine of not less than one hundred or more than five hundred dollars, and in default of payment, an imprisonment of not less than thirty days or more than four months. Now, under the Constitution (Art. 81) our jurisdiction in criminal matters is restricted to cases in which “the punishment of death or imprisonment at hard labor may be inflicted, or a fine exceeding three hundred dollars is actually imposed.”

¶4In this case no imprisonment at hard labor may result from conviction, and as no trial has yet taken place, no fine has been actually imposed. It, therefore, follows that we have no jurisdiction of Ihe appeal, as at present brought up, and that our plain constitutional duty is to refuse, on our own motion, to entertain it.

¶5It is, therefore, ordered that this appeal be dismissed.

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