In Re Ackerman

The petitioner was arrested and is detained in custody by the city marshal of the town of Ukiah, under a warrant of arrest issued upon a complaint filed in the recorder's court of said town, charging him with a misdemeanor under the provisions of an ordinance designated and known as "Ordinance No. 15" of said city of Ukiah, passed by the board of trustees thereof on the fourteenth day of November, 1887. It is alleged in the petition for the release of petitioner upon habeas corpus that the complaint upon which the warrant of arrest was issued against the prisoner "does not state a public offense or any offense whatever either against the laws of the State of California or against any or either of the ordinances of the town of Ukiah City." Among the particular objections urged against the ordinance, the provisions of which petitioner is charged with having violated, is the contention that said ordinance "is invalid and void for the reason that the same has been repealed by section 3366 of the Political Code and also by the provisions of Ordinance No. 119 of said Ukiah City," and, furthermore, that said ordinance "is illegal and void for the reason that the same is ambiguous and…

In his petition for rehearing, counsel for petitioner suggests that in the decision of the case we overlooked the main point upon which he relied, and misconceived his point "as to the force of section 3366, Political Code." The main point referred to, although stated by counsel in his petition in the nature of a number of queries, is briefly this: That the ordinance in question represents the taxing rather *Page 16 than the police power, because the license provided for therein amounts to a per capita tax upon dogs, and therefore there is imposed by the ordinance a restriction upon the ownership of those animals. In other words, his contention is that the ordinance authorizes a tax upon the ownership of dogs and not an attempt to regulate their use. We think that perhaps in one part of the main opinion we unhappily used language which might imply that we held that a license for regulatory purposes might be imposed upon the ownership of dogs. What we intended to say then and what we do say now is that a license tax upon dogs may be imposed, as an incident of the regulation of their management or control, or, as counsel prefers to express it, of their use. The very terms of the…