In short, the cause had come to a final end. See Gilman v. Tucker, 128 N.Y. 190, 204; Greenwood v. Butler, 52 Kan. 424; Lewis et al. v. Webb, 2 Greenleaf, 326; Weaver v. Lapsley, 43 Ala. 224; McCabe v. Emerson, 18 Pa. 111; People v. Carnal, 6 N.Y. 463; Taylor v. Place et al., 4 R.I. 324. MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the court.
" People v. Corning, 2 N.Y. 9, 15. That decision has been since recognized and acted on by that court, except so far as affected by express statutes. People v. Carnal, 6 N.Y. 463; People v. Clark, 7 N.Y. 385; People v. Merrill, 14 N.Y. 74, 76, 78; People v. Bork, 78 N.Y. 346. In 1849, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, speaking by Chief Justice Shaw, held that a writ of error did not lie in a criminal case in behalf of the Commonwealth; and therefore dismissed writs of error sued out to reverse judgments upon indictments in two cases, in one of which the defendant, after pleading nolo contendere, had moved in arrest of judgment for formal defects in the indictment, and thereupon judgment had been arrested and the defendant discharged, and in the other the indictment had been quashed on the defendant's motion.
As a general rule a construction of a statute which will give it a retroactive operation is not favored by the courts, and it will not receive such construction unless its language either expressly or by necessary implication requires that it be so construed. ( People v. Carnal, 6 N.Y. 463; Rhodes v. Sperry Hutchinson Co., 193 id. 223; Jacobus v. Colgate, 217 id. 235. See, also, Statutes and Statutory Construction, McKinney's Consolidated Laws, book 1, p. 71, ยง 17, and cases cited thereunder.