Opinion
No. 32248
Decided January 31, 1951.
Municipal corporations — Police power — Section 3, Article XVIII, Constitution — Assault and battery — Ordinance defining offense and prescribing punishment — Power of municipality to enact.
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Montgomery county.
The defendant, appellant herein, was tried in the Municipal Court of Dayton on a charge of assault and battery in violation of a municipal ordinance virtually analogous to the state statute on the same subject, except as to the punishment.
The trial resulted in a verdict of guilty upon which judgment was entered. The judgment was affirmed by the Common Pleas Court and, upon appeal to the Court of Appeals, the judgment of the Common Pleas Court was affirmed.
The case is in this court on an appeal as of right.
Mr. Herbert S. Beane, city attorney, Mr. Maurice A. Russell, city prosecutor, and Mr. Joseph P. Duffy, for appellee.
Mr. A.K. Meck, for appellant.
Appellant stresses the claim that the assault and battery ordinance of the city of Dayton, under which he was prosecuted, is invalid for the reason that municipal corporations have authority, under Section 3, Article XVIII of the Constitution, to enact only "local police regulations," whereas the ordinance in question is not such a regulation but is a general police regulation prescribing punishment for a crime.
Municipal corporations of this state have authority to define, by ordinance, the offense of assault and battery and to prescribe punishment therefor. The ordinance in question is a valid enactment. Greenburg v. City of Cleveland, 98 Ohio St. 282, 120 N.E. 829; Village of Struthers v. Sokol, 108 Ohio St. 263, 140 N.E. 519.
There being no prejudicial error appearing on the record, the judgment is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
WEYGANDT, C.J., ZIMMERMAN, STEWART, MIDDLETON, TAFT, MATTHIAS and HART, JJ., concur.