Case ID: ga_17/html/0290-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Sensing, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 54.
    Matthew Sharp, plaintiff in error, vs. The State of Georgia, defendant in error.
    
       Every indictment is sufficient, which states the offence in the terms or language of the I’enal Code, or so plainly that the nature of the offence may •he easily understood by the Jury.
    
       The case of one who, by pleading not guilty to an indictment for retailing liquors without license, alleges that he retailed with license, is not an exception to the general rale, that he who alleges an affirmative must prove it.
    
      Indictment, in Macon Superior Court. Tried before Judge Powers, September Term, 1854.
    Matthew Sharp was put upon his trial, under an indictment charging him with the offence of “retailing without license.” Counsel for defendant moved to quash, on the ground that it should have charged him with a “ misdemeanor.” The Court ■ over-ruled the motion, and this is the first error assigned.
    The Solicitor General closed his case without proving that defendant had no license. The Court charged the Jury, that it was not incumbent on the State to prove the fact that defendant had no license. The onus was on him to show that he had license. This charge is the second error assigned.
    Blanbford & Crawford ; Oliver & Clements, for plaintiff in error.
    Sol. Gen. DeGraffenReid and Whittle, for defendant in error.
   By the. Court.

Sensing, J.

delivering the opinion.

The indictment stated the offence in the terms and language of the Code, or so plainly that the nature 'of the offence might be easily understood by the Jury; and that is all that the law requires. (The Code, Cobb’s Dig. 818, 833.)

It is a general principle of law, that the party that alleges the affirmative of a proposition, especially if the proposition concern something which must be peculiarly within his knowledge, must prove the proposition.

The case of one who, by pleading not guilty to a charge of retailing without license, alleges that he retailed with license, is not an exception to the general rule. (Apothecaries’ Company vs. Bentley, Ry. & Mood. 159. See 1 Starkie on Ev. 362, and cases cited. 1 Green. Ev. Sec. 79, and cases cited.)

In accordance with this principle was the charge of the Court. That charge was therefore right.

So there should be a general affirmance.