6o6
THE GREEN BAG
26 Ind. Appeals, 279. 35 Fed. Rep. 866. 45 Ark. 46 S. W. 700. 99 Ky. 133. 8 Am. and Eng. Enc. of Law, 935. 183 U. S. 498. How the Commissioner came to make this statement I am not advised. Further continuing the discussion, the Commissioner says, of the case of Czarra v. Board of Medical Supervisors, (25 App. Cases, D. C., 443): "The medical practitioner was convicted under the act of Congress approved June 3, 1896, of 'unprofessional and dishonor able conduct." The point considered by the court was whether these words were sufficient to satisfy the sixth amendment, which preserves the right of the accused in all criminal prosecutions to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against them. In this case the court said: "' This obvious duty must be performed by the legislature itself and cannot be delegated to the judiciary. It may doubtless be accomplished by the use of words or terms of settled meaning or which indicate offenses well known to and defined by the common law. Reasonable certainty in view of the conditions is all that is required, and liberal effect is always to be given to the legislative intent when possible.'" This immediately precedes the quotation from that case which I have just made. This is all the Commissioner does say about that case, its effect, and what was decided therein. If the English language is given its ordinary and usual signification, in view of the fact that the Commissioner saw fit to italicize the words "was con victed," this statement of the Czarra case is equivalent to the assertion on the part of the Commissioner that there was a con viction that was sustained, and that not withstanding the indcfiniteness of the lan guage the court sustained the validity of the statute. That this statement of the Com
missioner in his typewritten memorandum is not an inadvertence, appears very dearly from the fact that the Commissioner appeared before the committee more than a week before he submitted his written memorandum, and in his address upon that occasion made, in substance, the same state ment with reference to the Czarra case that appears in his memorandum. I hold in my hand the Czarra case. In the first place, there was no conviction under the statute. The statute provided a penalty for practicing medicine after the revocation of a license and authorized the Commissioners to revoke the license for unprofessional or dishonorable conduct. The license had been revoked. Nothing else had been done although it is quite true that the revoking of the license laid the foundation for a criminal prosecution, pro vided Czarra continued to practice his pro fession, so that there was no conviction; and in the next place, instead of sustaining the statute and the action of the Commission ers in revoking the license, the court said: "For the reasons heretofore given, we are of the opininon that the order appealed from must be reversed with costs and the cause remanded with directions to dismiss the complaint." The "reasons" were that the statute was too indefinite and uncertain. So that this case instead of sustaining the contention of the distinguished Com missioner of Corporations, is a specific and direct authority in opposition thereto, and his statement of it is a complete misstatement. In the next case. Johnson v. Southern Pacific Company, (117 Feb. Rep. 469) by which the Commissioner proposed to sus tain his contention he is equally unfortu nate in his ability to accurately state the law. He said: "The act of March 2, 1893, known as the ' safety appliance law ' makes it unlawful for any common carrier engaged in inter state commerce to run any train in such
