Case ID: ky_37/html/0215-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Chief Justice Robertson", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Webster vs. The Commonwealth.
    [Mr. Trimble for plaintiff: Atto. Gen. Cates for the Commonweath.]
    Indictment.
    From the Circuit Court eor Harrison County.
    
      October 18.
    An indictment charging that the-accused kept a tippling house, ‘ not under pre-tence of keeping a tavern,’ is good after verdict, as those terms manifestly imply that he had no license. But the, terms,, kept &c. ‘ without having obtained a license to keep tavern,5' are more appropriate.
   Chief Justice Robertson

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

The only question in this case, is whether, after verdict, an indictment is good which charges the accused with keeping a tippling house — “ not under pretence of keeping a tavern.”

Without having obtained license to keep a tavern,” would have been .more appropriate, and .less liable to criticism or objection. But if the- accused made no “pretence of keeping a tavern,” surely the manifest inference was, that he had no license to keep a tavern.

And we are clearly, therefore, of the opinion that, according to the sixth section of the act of 1831, the indictment in this case is good, and that a verdict of guilty upon it, authorized the judgment, as rendered, for the cumulative penalty of sixty dollars, denounced by that section, for keeping a tippling house, “without obtaining a license'’'1 to keep a tavern.

Wherefore the judgment is affirmed.