Case ID: va_44/html/0808-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Loftus v. The Commonwealth.
    December Term, 1846.
    (Absent Scott, J.)
    Spirituous Liquors — License—Offences Provable under Indictment. — Under an indictment for selling spirituous liquors without a license, the Commonwealth may prove any offence against the act by the defendant, within the prescribed time; and is" not confined to proof of the particular offence which was brought to the notice of the grand jury, and upon proof of which they found the indictment.
    Anthony Eoftus was indicted in the Circuit Court of Monongalia, for retailing spirits without a license, not to be drunk at the place where sold.
    On the trial, the Commonwealth introduced a witness who proved that he purchased and paid for a pint of spirits from Ivoftus, which he carried home for medicine : and this was all the evidence for the Commonwealth. Whereupon, the defendant offered one of the grand jurors who made the presentment, to prove that the sale proved by the witness was not the offence presented by *the grand jury in the indictment against the defendant. But the Court excluded the evidence, and the defendant excepted; and a verdict and judgment having been given against him, he applied to the General Court for a writ of error.
    
      
      Spirltuous Liquors — Particular Sale Charged. — As to the right of the defendant in the prosecution to be informed by the indictment of the particular sale alleged to be unlawful, the principal case is cited in State v. Chisnell, 36 W. Va. 664, 15 S. E. Rep. 413. See monographic note on “Intoxicating Liquors” appended to Thon v. Com., 31 Gratt. 887.
    
   By the Court.

The writ of error is denied.