People v. Lowell

I cannot agree with the conclusion as set forth in the very able and forceful opinion of my colleague, Justice Fead. The rule of statutory repeal by implication, as set forth therein, first appears in the “History of the Pleas of the Crown,” by Sir Mathew Hale. He discusses an act of parliament, 1 Edw. VI, cap. 12, which repeals certain penal statutes. Hale’s philosophic comments or dictum seem to be the basis, or at least the first expression, of the rule of construction under discussion in the present ease. Miller’s Case (1764), 1 Wm. Bl. 451, so frequently cited, seems to have been the…