Case ID: tex-ct-app_23/html/0259-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hurt, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 5215.
    John Keller v. The State.
    Sunday Law—See the statement of the ease for evidence held insufficient to support a conviction for selling intoxicating liquors on Sunday,—the statutory inhibition not extending to the gift of intoxicating liquors on Sunday.
    Appeal from the County Court of Dallas. Tried below before the Hon. E. G. Bower, County Judge.
    The conviction was for selling whisky on Sunday, and the penalty assessed was a fine of twenty dollars.
    The single witness who was introduced on the trial testified that he was in defendant’s saloon on the Sunday charged in the indictment, and took several drinks of whisky, served by the defendant. He was very drunk and did not know whether the whisky was sold to him or not. He did not know whether or not he paid for the drinks. He had never paid for them since, nor had he been asked to pay for them.
    No brief for the appellant.
    
      W. L. Davidson, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.
   Hurt, Judge.

This was a conviction for selling a glass of whisky to one F. Meyer, on Sunday.

There is no law prohibiting the giving away of whisky on Sunday. It is the sale or barter that is prohibited. To sustain this conviction there must be proof that appellant sold—bartering not being alleged—the whisky. Looking to the statement of facts, we find that there is not sufficient proof upon this point. For this, the judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded.

Opinion delivered April 9, 1887.

Reversed and remanded.