Ex parte Davis

The petitioner was convicted in the recorder’s court of the city of Watsonville upon a complaint charging him with keeping open a saloon in said city for the sale of intoxicating drinks, between the hours of twelve o’clock at night and five o’clock the following morning. “All of which [so the complaint charges] is contrary to the form of the ordinance in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the people of the state of California.”

It is claimed that the imprisonment of petitioner in *447 pursuance of said conviction is unlawful, because the complaint charges no offense, and that it charges no offense because it does not plead the ordinance by title, date of passage, or in any manner except in the general terms above quoted.

The argument in support of this position is, that the ordinances of municipal corporations are private statutes; that courts do not take judicial notice of private statutes; and, consequently, that they must be pleaded and proved like other material facts.

It is true, as a general proposition, with reference to proceedings in the courts of superior or general jurisdiction, that municipal ordinances are regarded as private…