Webster v. City of Lansing

The plaintiff in error was prosecuted by criminal proceedings before a justice of the peace for keeping a saloon without license contrary to city ordinances and the justice found him guilty and sentenced him to pay a fine of thirty dollars within two hours and in default of payment to be imprisoned in the penitentiary of the city for thirty days.

Webster, appealed to the circuit court where the case was entitled and presented as though it were a civil suit by the city against the defendant. This was not a mere clerical *193misprision or an accidental misnomer. It was a deliberate proceeding by tbe…