Judicial History 23 tions of the river, yet here the Compact is given controlling power over a statute which could be effective beyond tidewater. E. Hendricks v. Virginia (1882). Hendricks, a citizen of Maryland, was indicted in Virginia for fishing with nets and seines opposite a regularly hauled fishing landing on the Virginia shore of the Potomac River. The act was a clear violation of the concurrent laws on the Potomac River. His plea was that according to the Compact he was entitled to be tried in a Maryland Court. However, he was convicted by the Virginia court, and the conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Appeals of that state (75 Va. 934) . The Court cited and discussed the provision in Article 8 of the Compact that fishing laws for the Potomac River `shall be made with the mutual consent and approba tion of both states.' The effect of this article is to give the State of Vir ginia concurrent jurisdiction with the State of Mary land, over the Potomac River from shore to shore . . . . , to enact such laws, with the consent and approval of Maryland, as may be deemed necessary and proper for the preservation of fish in said waters. The power of a state to enact laws, carries with it the judicial power to enforce them. A law without a sanction is no law; and an act of legislation without power to enforce it, is not a law. The judicial, unless otherwise stipulated in the Compact, is co-extensive with the legislative jurisdiction. The Court was saying, then, that the power given by the Compact for the states to enact concurrent laws carried with it logically the power for both states also to enforce the laws. Hendricks pointed to Article 10 of the Compact, by which "piracies, crimes and other offenses" committed in the Potomac River, by a citizen of one state against a citizen of the other, were to be tried by the state of which |
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