Ex parte Ah You

This is a proceeding upon habeas corpus. The facts out of which the case arises are stipulated as follows: —

“ 1. That on the fourteenth day of February, 1889, a charter (framed and adopted in accordance with constitutional amendment No. 16, approved March 10, 1887, *340 statutes of 1887, page 88) became and ever since has been and now is the organic law of the city of Oakland.

“2. That at a municipal election duly and regularly h eld in the city of Oakland, under the provisions of said charter, one Alexander Laidlaw received certain votes, being a majority of all the votes cast for police judge, was thereafter by the municipal council of the said city of Oakland declared elected police judge of the police court provided for in said charter. Thereupon the said Alexander Laidlaw filed a bond as such police judge, as required by the said charter, took the oath of office, and has ever since been and now claims to be the police judge of the police court provided for in said charter.

“3. That on the twenty-fourth day of July, 1889, the said Ah You was brought before the said police court, so as aforesaid created and organized, and before the said Alexander Laidlaw, so as aforesaid…

I dissent. I think the court erred in its decision in the case of People v. Henshaw, 76 Cal. 436 , and that the decision in that case ought to be reconsidered. No property rights have grown up under it, and no injury can result from a correction of the error then made, if it was an error. The act of the legislature then under consideration,—“ an act to provide for police courts in cities having thirty thousand and under one hundred thousand inhabitants, and to provide for officers thereof,” approved March 18, 1885, commonly called the “Whitney bill ” (Stats. 1885, p. 213),— was at the time of its passage as clearly a special law as any ever passed by a legislative body, and under the constitution should have been declared void.

But whether that decision was right or wrong as the laws then stood, it is to my mind most clear that the act then under consideration is not now a law of the state applicable to the city of Oakland. At that time the city of Oakland was a municipality existing under special act passed long before the adoption of the present constitution; and if the “ Whitney bill” was a general law, the charter was subject to amendment, and was amended by such general law,…