Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/418

 Riot Law. scntatives have brought actions in the local Courts to obtain their rights tinder the law. For injuries to property, apparently there is no redress in Ohio. Insurance companies refuse uniformly to insure against riot, and when buildings were burned in Akron, the owners thereof could recover no insurance. In the hardware store, above mentioned, $2,500 worth of property _ was stolen from the store, plate glass was broken and various other injuries suffered. Yet this loss fell wholly on the proprietors of the store. A steam laundry and a small store were com pletely destroyed, and for this there was no recompense. By this, these men lost all their property and the law gives no redress. An interesting question arises in this connection under the following circumstances. Sup pose a foreign corporation should lend money on property which is destroyed as a result of a riot. Under the Ohio decisions, the loss is fixed in the real owner of the property. Now since the subject matter of the loan is destroyed, what becomes of the security? Obviously the trend of all these decisions works an injustice and many dis astrous results follow from such an inter pretation. Of course, such liability may be guarded against by special contract and some of the larger loan companies insist upon the insertion of such a cautionary clause. Manifestly insurance companies protest against such insertions, but rather than lose the insurance accept the clause guarding against loss by riot. Our readers are to remember that this new statute providing penalties against rioters, who attack officers or break into prison, has never yet met with a judicial interpretation. Aside from several grammatical errors, the very construction of the Statute is open to considerable question. Assuming the truth of the general proposition, that the purpose of all judicial interpretation is to get at the real meaning' of the Statute, its legal intendmcnt, the purpose of its enactment, what shall we say as to this Statute? Hastily enacted, the direct outcome of recent riots at Urbana and

Washington C. H., its provisions were made to cover only such conditions as arose there. Generally speaking, there is no doubt that it looked toward the prevention of mob vio lence. Any interpretation leading otherwise must necessarily be unwise and absurd. On the interpretation of this Statute, it is diffi cult to decide, whether it shall be liberally or strictly construed. At first glance it would seem that the Court must apply the rule ordinarily applied to the burglary statute. The circumstances render interpretation a matter of peculiar import. At the time the mob gathered before the City Prison, in which the negro was sup posed to be confined, the officers had taken him away to the neighboring city of Cleve land. When the mob reached the prison, their intended victim had escaped. Our readers will note that the Statute makes intent an essential of the crime. Before trial there was a demurrer to the indictment on this ground. Attorneys for the defense asked, "How can you seize a prisoner who is not there? How can the mind operate against an object which has no existence? One cannot seize a man who does not exist.'' Our Ohio decision, which declared that there could be burglary if the object were not in the dwelling upon which the breaking was made, was cited. Counsel for the State urged that intent is necessary in burglary. In support of their position the Prosecuting Attorney cited State r. Beal, 18 O. S., 108. The Court in this case overruled this charge of the lower court: "That if the accused broke and entered the build ing with intent to break into the safe and steal money supposed to be therein, and the safe was not used as a place for the deposit of money, and there was none therein at the time, he was not guilty."

This seemed an analogous case and fol lowing it the Court overruled the demurrer. This contention of the defense opens up the whole subject of lynching as a legal act. Are we to construe statutes punishing lynchings, just as we construe ordinary criminal statutes? In other words, is this statute to