Case ID: mass_66/html/0414-01.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

Commonwealth vs. Henry A. Kendall.
    The twelfth section of St. 1852, c. 322, violates no principle of the constitution.
    An indictment upon that section is sufficient, which avers that the defendant, on a day named, “and from that day to the day of finding this indictment, was, without being duly authorized and appointed thereto according to law, a common seller of spirituous and intoxicating liquors and mixed liquors, part of which were spirituous and intoxicating, contrary to,” &c.
    Indictment for an illegal sale of spirituous and intoxicating liquors, contrary to St. 1852, c. 322, § 12, alleging that the defendant, “ on the first day of September, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-two, and from that day to the day of finding this indictment, was, without being duly authorized and appointed thereto according to law, a common seller of spirituous and intoxicating liquors and mixed liquors, part of which were spirituous and intoxicating, against the peace of said commonwealth, and contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided.” After conviction in the court of common pleas, at the September term, 1853, the defendant moved in arrest of judgment for the following causes: “ 1. Because the indictment does not sufficiently allege and set out any offence against said statute. 2. Because it does not aver any violation of any constitutional law of this commonwealth.” Byington, J., overruled the motion, and the defendant excepted to his ruling.
    
      
      T. G. Coffin, for the defendant.
    
      R. Choate, (attorney-general,) for the commonwealth.
   By the Court.

The indictment sufficiently charges the defendant with the offence of being a common seller of spirituous and intoxicating liquors, according to the form required; and that part of the statute on which it is founded violates no principle of the constitution. JExceptions overruled.