Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/940

 «26 ���PBDKBAL BBPOBTEB. ���The right of the legislature to give jurisdiotion to justiceB oi the peace to impose fines has long been "the law of the land" in Mary- land, and it has been held in her appellate court that actions to recover fines are civil actions, although the penalty for non-payment may be imprisonment. Mace's Case, 5 Md. 337. The right of all governments, notwithstanding similar constitutional prohibitions against taking property of the citizen "but by the law of the land" or "without due process of law," to proceed by summary process of distress or fines or penalties to enforce payment of revenue, ia «laborately discussed and fully sustained by the supreme court in Murray t. Hoboken Land Co. 18 How. 272, �In advance of such a construction by the state tribunals, I am net at all prepared to hold that the Maryland legislature is prohibited by her constitution from conferring jurisdiotion upon justices of the peace to try and fine offenders against her revenue laws, or against her laws for the protection of her fisheries. AU possible risk of oppressive abuse would seem to be guarded against in this law of 1880 by the right of appeal to a court sitting with a jury. �The next objection urged against the forfeiture and sale of the ves- «el, and against the title of the purchaser to whom she was sold and delivered by the sherifip, is that there was no notice given to the owner or other persons having interest in her, and that, therefore, the proceeding as against them was void, as being an attempt of the «tate to deprive them of their property "without due process of law," «ontrary to section 1 of the fourteenth amendment of the constitu- tion of the United States. �The act of 1880 provides that the state ofBcers shall seize and take into custody the vessel found violating the provisions of the act, and if, upon trial and conviction, the offenders do not pay the fine im- posed upon them within 20 days, then the justice shall direct the Tessel to be sold after 20 days' notice. �The supreme court of the United States, in Smith v. Maryland, 18 How. 75, passed upon the validity of the Maryland oyster law of 1833, by which every vessel employed in catching oysters with a dredge was declared forfeittd to the state, with everything on board of her. In that case the vessel belonged to a non-resident of the state, and was condemned by a justice of the peace of Anne Arundel county, and, upon appeal to the circuit court of that county, the judgment had been confirmed. The case, by writ of error to the Anne Arundel county court, was brought before the supreme court, and that court, after sustaining the constitutionality of the state ��� �