Casteel v. City of Decatur

A city ordinance declaring “any person or persons committing an offense prohibited by the laws of the state of Alabama” guilty of a misdemeanor, and prescribing the punishment under the ordinance, applies to offenses against the state law in force at the time of the offense, and not at the time the ordinance was enacted. Whether the state law was in force when the ordinance was enacted is immaterial.

The thought behind the ordinance is that he who offends the peace and dignity of the parent state, by infraction of her penal laws, offends also against the laws of the local government.

Such…