Notes of Recent Cases. by Justice Gaynor in Hale v. Burns, 89 New York Supplement 711. This was a suit for an injunction by the owner of a saloon and restaurant against a police captain to re strain the latter from keeping his officers permanently in plaintiff's saloon and diningroom on suspicion that gambling was car ried on there. It appeared that defendant had no evidence of any -gaming in plaintiff's rooms and had not arrested anyone in or about the place, nor made any complaint be fore a magistrate. It further appeared that defendant had said that he would keep his officers at plaintiff's place until he drove plaintiff out of his precinct, and also declared that he would keep his officers at plaintiff's place so long as he allowed certain-named persons to come in there. The court, in granting the injunction, con demns the conduct of the police captain, say ing: "He (the police captain) is acting with out any warrant or authority whatever, and is evidently under the dangerous delusion that he is an official of unlimited powers, and free to exercise force or violence over any person or place in his precinct. He thinks he has the right to rule with a shillalah or policeman's club. He is either grossly ig norant, or else a wilful and dangerous crimi nal. His acts clearly constitute the crime of oppression, and it is fortunate that they have not provoked violence, and even bloodshed, for the plaintiff has the right to resist them with all the force necessary. . . . "This case was argued before me two months ago, but I have refrained from de ciding it so that those in authority over this police captain might call him to account for his lawless conduct, and make a decision here unnecessary, for it is irksome to have to repeatedly decide that the police have no right to invade any one's house or place of business without a warrant from a magis trate, except in pursuit of a fleeing criminal, or on a call for help against violence, and the like. The safeguards against such invasions, and against unlawful arrests, which are found in our Constitutions in this country, are the warp and woof of our system of gov ernment, and of free government every
779
where. They mark the distinction between free government and despotism. When they are set at naught free government is gone, and government by force, or despotism, takes its place. . . . "The notion that the police, or police offi cials, however high, may violate the law in their efforts or pretenses to make others obey it, is a most pernicious one. What they can not do by keeping within the law themselves, the law does not require or suffer them to do at all. It is not for them to try to be, or pretend to be, stricter or better than the law, or resort to means which the law regards as destructive of free government, and does not permit. The law can be effective and per manently enforced only in a lawful, orderly and uniform manner. This is a case in which it is the bounden duty of the judiciary to speak out plainly, after the manner of judges in England and here from the earliest times. In a free government, the courts are the guardians of the rights and liberties of the people."
SLANDER. (PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATION.) SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA.
The point was raised in Flanders v. Daley. 48 Southeastern Reporter 327, that a minis ter of the gospel cannot hold a person liable for words spoken in reference to his profes sion, unless it appears that he is receiving profit therefrom. The court concedes that there is respectable authority supporting this view, but says that it is not prepared to adopt it. On the contrary, the court is of the opinion that a minister of the gospel, who has been the victim of slanderous words spoken in reference to his profession, should be entitled to his action against the slander er without being compelled to show that he was receiving at the time the words were uttered emoluments or compensation from his profession. Ihe true law protects the reputation or character of a minister of the gospel without regard to whether at the time the wrong is perpetrated upon him he
