Ex Parte Maier

In Ex Parte Maier (1894) 103 Cal. 476, the Legislature had banned the sale of deer meat in this state. Former section 626 of the Penal Code provided: "Every person in the state of California who shall at any time sell, or offer for sale, the hide or meat of any deer, elk, antelope, or mountain sheep, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor." The court held that the statute prohibited the sale of such meat no matter where the meat was procured, in the state or out of the state. The intent of the law was to protect game within the state, and it was reasonable for the Legislature to ban all sales because, among other things, of the ease with which the statutes for the protection of game have been evaded. ( Ex Parte Maier, supra, 103 Cal. 476, 480.) In the Maier case the court stated (at p. 483), that "The wild game within a state belongs to the people in their collective, sovereign capacity; it is not the subject of private ownership, except in so far as the people may elect to make it so; and they may, if they see fit, absolutely prohibit the taking of it, or any traffic or commerce in it, if deemed necessary for its protection or preservation, or the public good. To this extent it is conceded that the state may go. But it is contended that to go further, and prohibit the sale of game lawfully killed elsewhere and brought here as private property, is in effect to destroy private property, and that this is going beyond a proper exertion of the police power. While it is true that the power to regulate is not the power to destroy, in its absolute sense, it is, nevertheless, true that the right to regulate frequently and as a necessary sequence carries with it the right to so control and limit the use or enjoyment of private property as to amount to its destruction."