Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

69 Ark. 550

Ford v. State

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided October 12, 1901

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1901-10-12

Edwahd D. RobeRtson,v Chancellor. Under our statute the punishment for contempt cannot exceed a fine of $50 and an imprisonment for ten days. Sand. & H. Dig., § 686; S3 Ark. 151; 44 Cal. 475; 44 la. 580; 34 Kan. 314. Certi-orari is the proper remedy when the court has exceeded its ¡jurisdiction. 39 Ark. 173; 53 Ark. 313; 30 Ark. 17; 33 Ark. 107. The legislature has no power to impose limitations upon the authority of the courts to punish contempts by disobedience of process.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1901-10-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently March 2019

7 state decisions

20190119101920193019401950196019701980199020002010decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Wood, J.

¶1Petitioners, Ford and Beatty, were each adjudged guilty of contempt of court by the chancery court of Mississippi county; said contempt consisting in disobedience to a process of injunction issued by said court. One was fined in the sum of $500, and the other in the sum of $100. This proceeding is by certio-rari to quash the judgment, on the ground that the punishment imposed was in excess of the court’s jurisdiction. Art. 7, § 36, of the constitution is as follows: “The general assembly shall have power to regulate by law the punishment of contempts not committed in the presence or hearing of the courts or in disobedience of process.” This constitutional provision is couched in such strong affirmative terms as to clearly evince a purpose to limit the power of the legislature to regulate the punishment of contempts to eases where the contempt is not committed in the presence or hearing of the courts, or in disobedience of process. Therefore the legislature, in attempting to prescribe punishment for a contempt committed by disobedience of the court’s process, passed the bounds set by the fundamental law.

¶2Affirmed.

/69/ark/550 · .json · Public domain