(Download) "Drehman v. Stifle" by United States Supreme Court ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Drehman v. Stifle
- Author : United States Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 01, 1869
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 54 KB
Description
Mr. J. Hughes, for the plaintiff in error (a brief of Mr. J. C. Moody being filed), contended that the clause of the Missouri constitution, by which alone the action of Drehman was defeated, did contain the elements both of a bill of attainder, and of a law impairing the obligation of contracts. 1. It was a bill of attainder. The constitution in which it is attempted to be ordained, was reviewed in Cummings v. Missouri.1 In that case another clause of the same constitution sought to divest Cummings, a priest, of his power to preach, that is to say, of his right to his profession, by requiring priests to take an oath which he could not take. Here another clause forbids persons to prosecute claims for loss of property, by providing a bar to suits if pending when the ordinance passed. Though the owner is neither charged with nor convicted of a crime, he is deprived of his property without judicial trial as completely as if he were both charged and convicted. If the Convention had declared, by ordinance, that Drehman had committed treason, and that because of his crime his property was forfeited, and his right of action against the defendant barred, this would unquestionably have been a 'bill of pains and penalties.' Is it any less a bill of pains and penalties when it inflicts the penalty without imputing the crime as a foundation? Does the Constitution of the United States prohibit the bill of attainder with a crime imputed as a pretext, and permit an enactment containing all the essential elements of attainder, when there is no pretext assigned?
 "Drehman v. Stifle" by United States Supreme Court ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}