Case ID: monaghan_1/html/0158-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Quinney v. Commonwealth.
    Two defendants, recited as a yeoman and a married woman, were indicted, in Allegheny county, in the first count, for keeping and maintaining a house, room and place, hotel, inn and tavern, where vinous, spirituous, malt and brewed liquors, and admixtures thereof, were sold, by retail, without license, and, in the second count, with selling, and offering for sale, vinous, spirituous, malt and brewed liquors, and admixtures thereof, without license, agreeably to law, etc. The defendant moved to quash the indictment because, l,the Act of May 13,1887, provided no penalty, or mode of trial, for the offense alleged in the first count; 2, the acts charged in the second count were not prohibited; and, 3, because of the joinder of the defendants. The court overruled the motion, the jury found a verdict of guilty as to the man, not guilty as to the woman, and the court imposed a sentence of $500, costs of prosecution and imprisonment in the Allegheny county worhhouse. A writ of error was taken, assigning for error the action of the court, 1, in not quashing the indictment, and, 2, in imposing imprisonment in the workhouse. -Judgment affirmed.
    Pbr Curiam. — The criminal procedure Act of March 31,1860, gives jurisdiction to the court of quarter sessions in all eases of crimes not exclusively triable in the oyer and terminer. The commitment was warranted by the local Act of February 1,1866.
    Oct. 29, 1888.
    Error, No. 186, Oct. T. 1888, to Q. S. Allegheny Co., to review a judgment on a verdict of guilty on an indictment for selling liquor without license, at June Sessions, 1888, No. 231.
    The first count charged that Eugene Quinney, yeoman, and Mary Quinney, married woman, on May 12, 1888, in the county aforesaid, unlawfully did keep and maintain a house, room and place, hotel, inn and tavern, where vinous, spirituous, malt and brewed liquors, and admixtures thereof, were sold by retail without having first obtained a license agreeably to law, for that purpose, etc.
    The second count charged that said Eugene Quinney and said Mary Quinney, on the day and year aforesaid, unlawfully did sell and offer for sale, vinous, spirituous, malt and brewed liquors, and admixtures thereof, without having first obtained a license, agreeably to law, for that purpose.
    
      At the trial, counsel for the defendants moved to quash the indictment, for the following reasons:
    1. The Act of Assembly approved May 13, 1887, § 1, under the provisions of which the defendants are charged, in the first count, to wit: keeping and maintaining, etc., a house, room, etc., where vinous, spirituous liquors, etc., were sold, merely declares the same to be unlawful and does not provide a penalty or mode of trial.
    2. The acts charged in the second count are not declared to be unlawful, nor is the offense described in said Act of Assembly.
    3. The indictment should be quashed because of joining of Eugene Quinney and his wife.
    The court overruled the motion, and the jury rendered a verdict finding Eugene Quinney, guilty, and Mary Quinney, not guilty.
    The court sentenced Eugene Quinney, to pay a fine of $500 and the costs of prosecution, and undergo an imprisonment in the Allegheny county workhouse for ten months.
    
      The assignments of error specified the action of the court, 1, in not quashing the indictment; and, 2, in imposing imprisonment in the Allegheny county workhouse.
    
      W. A. Brennan, with him J. K. P. Duff, for plaintiff in error.
    The first count should have been quashed. It is not contrary to the common law to keep and maintain a place where liquors are sold, as provided in the Act of May 13, 1887; and there is no penalty provided in the Act, as a punishment for keeping and maintaining a house, room, place, inn or tavern where liquors, etc., are sold without a license.
    The second count of the indictment is laid under § 15 of the Act, and presents the anomaly of being strong where the first count is weak, and weak where the first count is strong. The Act nowhere declares it to be unlawful to sell or give liquors, etc., without a license. It simply provides a prmishment for an offense not described or prohibited.
    The Act does not provide a mode of trial, nor does it vest jurisdiction in the court of quarter sessions to try offenders against its provisions. The defendant must be tried by a court of quarter sessions, acting and speaking according to law. Mills v. Com., 13 Pa. 630.
    It is repugnant to the spirit of the law, and especially of the criminal law, to have the same act punished in one place differently from another, — in Allegheny county, imprisonment in the workhouse, throughout the state, confinement in the county jail.
    Sentence must conform to the statute. Drew v. Com., 1 Wh. 279; Daniels v. Com., 7 Pa. 371; Clellans v. Com., 8 Pa. 223; Mills v. Com., 13 Pa. 630; Ex-parte Lange, 18 Wallace, 163.
    Penal statutes are to be construed strictly. Warner v. Com., 1 Pa. 154; Bartolett v. Achey, 38 Pa. 273; Sedgwick on the Construction of Statutes, page 281; Remmington v. State, 1 Oregon, 281; State v. Lovell, 23 Iowa, 304; Gibson v. State, 38 Ga. 571; Com. v. Martin, 17 Mass. 359.
    
      The intention of the legislature is to be collected from the words they employ. U. S. v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, &c.; Wilston v. Wentworth, 5 Foster, N. H. 247; Schooner Nymph, 1 Sumner, 516-518.
    If a thing is limited to be done in a particular form or manner, it excludes every other mode, and affirmative expressions introducing a new rule imply a negative. District Township v. Dubuque, 7 Clarke, Iowa, 262; New Haven v. Whitney, 36 Conn. 373.
    Where a statute imposes a new penalty for an offense, it repeals, by implication, so much of a former statute as establishes a different penalty. Sedgwick on the Construction of Statutes, page 105.
    
      W. D. Porter, District Attorney, for defendant in error.
    The punishment to which the plaintiff in error was sentenced is within the limits fixed by § 15 of the Act, in the language of which the plaintiff in error was charged in the second count of the indictment; if, therefore, the court of quarter sessions had jurisdiction of the offense for which this section provides a punishment, the judgment must stand. Those sections of the Act, which precede the 15th, provide that it shall be unlawful to keep or maintain a house, room, etc., where liquors are sold, without having first obtained a license, and regulate the manner in which licenses shall be issued. The 15th section provides a punishment for violation of the prohibitions of the Act, viz: Any person hereafter convicted of selling liquor without a license shall be sentenced to pay a fine and undergo an imprisonment, etc. This means that the person selling without a license shall be legally convicted and sentenced by a properly constituted tribunal. The criminal procedure Act of March 31, 1860, F. L. 438, § 32, confers jurisdiction upon the courts of quarter sessions within the respective counties, in all cases where an Act imposes fines and punishments and does not expressly provide and enact that any other court shall have jurisdiction. Further, the Act of May 13th, 1887, in providing the punishment for selling liquor without a license, did not create a new offense; it simply changed the punishment of what was then a misdemeanor, of which the court of quarter sessions had jurisdiction.
    Under the Act of Feb. 1, 1866, P. L. 8, local to Allegheny county, the court may sentence to either the jail or workhouse, at its discretion.
    Jan. 7, 1889.
   Per Curiam,

The argument that the court of quarter sessions was without jurisdiction, in the case in hand, is without foundation, for the criminal procedure Act of March 31, 1860, gives full jurisdiction to this court in all cases of crimes and misdemeanors not exclusively triable in the oyer and terminer.

Nor is there more merit in the exception relating to the commitment of the defendant to the workhouse, for such commitment is warranted by tbe Act of February 1, 1866.

Judgment affirmed. A. B. W.

On. sufficiency of indictment, see Genkinger v. Com., 32 Pa. 99.