Ordinances of a city which subject the business of private
detectives and detective agencies to police supervision, and
provide that no person shall engage in such business without first
obtaining recommendation by the Board of Police Commissioners,
taking the oath prescribed for city detectives, and giving a bond
in the sum of $1,000 to secure proper conduct, do not violate the
Fourteenth Amendment. A contention to the contrary is not, however,
frivolous.
A state, under her police power, may supervise and regulate the
police business within her limits and all that pertains to it, and
this as regards the citizens of other states as well as her
own.
Even though the ordinances were construed by local officials, in
other cases, as excluding nonresidents from the detective business
in Georgia, one who made no application to comply with them and
thus failed to obtain a construction of them in his own case is not
entitled to raise in this Court the question whether they
discriminate against him as a citizen of another state.
Gundling v. Chicago, 177 U. S. 183.
16 Ga.App. 64 affirmed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
Page 242 U. S. 54
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in the case is the validity of ordinances of the
City of Atlanta, Georgia, which subject the business of a private
detective or detective agency to police supervision, and provide
that no person shall carry on such business without being first
recommended by the board of police commissioners, and taking the
oath of a city detective, and giving a bond in the sum of $1,000,
as prescribed by the ordinances.
Plaintiff in error was convicted in the recorder's court of the
city of a violation of the ordinances, and sentenced to pay a fine,
with the alternative of imprisonment. Under the local procedure, a
petition for certiorari was presented to the judge of the superior
court of the county to review the conviction, and was refused
"sanction," to use the local word. This action was approved by the
court of appeals, and the judgment affirmed.
The court of appeals rejected the contention that the ordinances
were unreasonable and void under the constitution of the state, to
review which decision we, of course, have no power, and it also
sustained the ordinances against the contention that they offended
the clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States. The latter contention is repeated here.
His contention, in its most general form, is that the ordinances
abolish the occupation of private detective by the requirements of
application for a permit to the police commission of the city, the
approval of the chief of police, oath of office, and to work under
police supervision. These requirements, it is insisted, offend the
due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The contention makes a federal question, and, as we are
Page 242 U. S. 55
not disposed to consider it frivolous, a motion to dismiss which
is made will be denied.
In passing upon the merits, we assume the facts of the complaint
were established -- that is, that plaintiff in error was proved to
have acted as a private detective, though he denied and denies it,
and that his services were those of a "sleuth," though he asserts
they were only those of a clerk. We make these assumptions against
the denials of plaintiff in error because, to sustain the denials,
he selects parts of the testimony only, and ignores also the
deduction that it was possible to make even from that
testimony.
The only question for our decision is the validity of the law,
and of that we have no doubt. Nor are we disposed to take much time
in its discussion, notwithstanding the earnest argument of
plaintiff in error. The extent of the police power of the state has
been too recently explained to need further enunciation. The
present case is easily within its principle. It would be very
commonplace to say that the exercise of police is one of the
necessary activities of government, and all that pertains to it may
be subjected to regulation and surveillance as a precaution against
perversion. The Atlanta ordinances do no more. They provide in
effect that all who engage in it or are connected with it as a
business shall have the sanction of the state, have the stamp of
the state as to fitness and character, take an oath to the state
for faithful execution of its duties, and give a bond for their
sanction. This the state may do against its own citizens and may do
against a citizen of Louisiana, which plaintiff in error is, or
against a citizen of any other state.
But the ruling of the local officers in refusing approval of
applications of nonresidents of Georgia is urged as a construction
of the ordinances or laws of the state, and, it is contended, makes
them discriminatory against citizens of other states. Plaintiff in
error, however, admits
Page 242 U. S. 56
he made no effort to comply with the ordinances. The court of
appeals therefore was of opinion that, whether certain sections of
the Penal Code of the state did or did not exclude citizens of
other states from engaging as private detectives, plaintiff in
error was deprived of no constitutional right, for, "as to him, the
ordinances were not construed at all." In other words, that he had
not asserted a right, and, in the absence of assertion, could not
have it judicially passed on. We concur in the ruling. It is within
the principle of
Gundling v. Chicago, 177 U.
S. 183. To complain of a ruling, one must be made the
victim of it. One cannot invoke, to defeat a law, an apprehension
of what might be done under it, and which, if done, might not
receive judicial approval.
Judgment affirmed.