Case ID: nc_198/html/0352-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Stacy, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

STATE v. CHARLIE LASSITER.
    (Filed 19 February, 1930.)
    Intoxicating Liquor A a — Constitutional Law B a — State statutory provision making the purchase of intoxicating liquor unlawful is valid.
    The State in its inherent and reserved power preserved to it by the Tenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution may enact valid laws relating to prohibition when not in conflict with the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, or congressional legislation, and our State statute, 3 C. S., 3411(b), making the purchase of intoxicating liquor a criminal offense is valid and enforceable.
    Appeal by defendant from Sinclair, J., at December Term, 1929, of OhowaN.
    Criminal prosecution tried upon an indictment charging the defendant with (1) transporting, (2) purchasing, (3) possessing, and (4) having in his possession for the purpose of sale intoxicating liquors, contrary to the statute in such cases made and provided and against the peace and dignity of the State.
    It was shown on the trial that the officers found a quantity of liquor, less than a, gallon, in the defendant’s bedroom. The defendant admitted purchasing the liquor in question for his own use.
    Yerdict: “Gkiilty of purchasing liquor.”
    Judgment: Imprisonment in the county jail for 30 days and to pay a fine of $50 and the costs.
    The defendant appeals, assigning error.
    
      Attorney-General Brummitt and Assistant Attorney-General Nmh for the State.
    
    
      L: E. Griffin for defendant.
    
   Stacy, C. J.

It is the position of the defendant that as the Yolstead Act, 41 U. S. Statutes at Large, 305, does not prohibit the purchase of liquor and the Turlington Act, ch. 1, Public Laws 1923, was adopted “to make tbe State law conform to tbe National law in relation to intoxicating liquor” under tbe “concurrent power” clause of tbe Eighteenth Amendment, tbe State was, therefore, at tbe time of tbe enactment of tbe local statute, limited in its power to legislate more stringently on tbe subject than tbe Congress bad done.

A similar argument was advanced in tbe case of U. S. v. Lanza, 260 E. S., 377, and answered by Mr. Chief Justice Taft, speaking, for tbe Supreme Court of tbe United States, as follows :

“Tbe Amendment w.as adopted for tbe purpose of establishing prohibition as a national policy reaching every part of tbe United States and affecting transactions which are essentially local or intrastate, as well as those pertaining to interstate or foreign commerce. Tbe second section means that power to take legislative measures to make tbe policy effective shall exist in Congress in respect of tbe territorial limits of tbe United States and at tbe same time tbe like power of tbe several States within their territorial limits shall not cease to exist. Each State, as also Congress, may exercise an independent judgment in selecting and shaping measures to enforce prohibition. Such as are adopted by Congress become laws of tbe United States and such as are adopted by a. State become laws of that State. They may vary in many particulars, including tbe penalties prescribed, but this is an inseparable incident of independent legislative action in distinct jurisdictions.
“To regard tbe Amendment as tbe source of tbe power of tbe States to adopt and enforce prohibition measures is to take a partial and erroneous view of tbe matter. Save for some restrictions arising out of the Federal Constitution, chiefly tbe commerce clause, each State possessed that power in full measure prior to tbe Amendment, and tbe probable purpose of declaring a concurrent power to be in tbe States was to negative any possible inference that in vesting tbe National Government with tbe power of' country-wide prohibition, State power would be excluded. In effect tbe second section of tbe Eighteenth Amendment put an end to restrictions upon tbe State’s power arising out of tbe Federal Constitution and left her free to enact prohibition laws applying to all transactions within her limits. To be sure, tbe first section of tbe Amendment took from tbe States all power to authorize acts falling within its prohibition, but it did not cut down or displace prior State laws not inconsistent with it. Such laws derive their force, as do all new ones consistent with it, not from this Amendment, but from power originally belonging to tbe States, preserved to them by tbe Tenth Amendment, and now relieved from tbe restriction heretofore arising out of tbe Federal Constitution. This is tbe ratio1 decidendi of our decision in Vigliotti v. Pennsylvania, 258 U. S., 403.
“We have here two sovereignties, deriving power from different sources, capable of dealing with tbe same- subject-matter within the same territory. Each ma.y, without interference by the other, enact laws to secure prohibition, with the limitation that no legislation can give validity to acts prohibited by the Amendment. Each government in determining what shall be an offense against its peace and dignity is exercising its own sovereignty, not that of the other.”

Speaking to -the same subject in S. v. Hammond, 188 N. C., 602, 125 S. E., 402, Hoke, O. J., delivering the opinion of the Court, said:

“Again, it is held that the power of a State to enact statutes in regulation of the manufacture, sale and disposition of intoxicating liquors is not rested alone or dependent upon the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, the Prohibition Amendment, but by virtue of its sovereignty and in the reasonable exercise of its police powers, the State may if it sees proper establish more stringent regulations on this subject than are contemplated by the amendment referred to, with the limitation that the State may not authorize or sanction that which the National Amendment prohibits, and that if, in case of concurrent legislation as therein authorized, designed to enforce the amendment, there is conflict between the Federal and State law, the provisions of the Federal statute shall prevail. S. v. Harrison, 184 N. C., p. 762; S. v. Barksdale, 181 N. C., p. 621; S. v. Fore, 180 N. C., p. 744; Rhode Island v. Palmer, 253 U. S., p. 350.”

It results, therefore, if we assume the law to be, as it has been defined, “the highest expression obtainable, at any given time, of the people’s conception of the correct rule of conduct,” that, as now expressed in the valid statutes of this State, it is unlawful to purchase, at .any time or place in North Carolina, any quantity of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes. S. v. Winston, 194 N. C., 243, 139 S. E., 240. The same statute which makes it unlawful for any person to sell any intoxicating liquor as a beverage also makes it unlawful for any person to purchase it for such purpose.' The seller and the purchaser are declared equally liable under the law. S. v. Hickey, ante, 45, 150 S. E., 615.

It is the avowed will of a majority of the people of this commonwealth that the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage shall be prevented, and so the statute provides that it shall be unlawful to sell it or to purchase it for'such purpose. The right of the State so to legislate, without infringement of the Federal law, is undoubted. Such was its right before the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment and the passage of the Yolstead Act, and such right is still preserved to it under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. S. v. Harrison, supra.

No error.