Case ID: va_46/html/0674-01.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

Peer’s Case.
    
    (Absent Field and Scott, J’s.)
    1. An Indictment for selling ardent spirits without a license, may charge the sale to two persons.
    2. A count under the 17th section of the act of March 7th, 1834, Sess. Acts 1833-4, p. 7, and a count under the 3d section of the same act may be joined in the same indictment.
    3. The omission in the counts of the words “ and certificate,” does not make them defective.
    Elias Peer was indicted in the Circuit Court of Shenandoah county, for selling ardent spirits. The indictment contained two counts. The first charged that the defendant sold by retail, whiskey, &c. to Abraham Wimer and to Abraham Horbough, to be drank where sold, without a license first had and obtained for that purpose, according to the act of Assembly, in such case made and provided, contrary, &c. The second charged the sale to the same persons, not to be drank at the place where sold, without having obtained a license therefor, contrary, &c.
    The defendant appeared and demurred to the indictment, and also pleaded “not guilty,” on which issues were joined ; and when the case came on to be tried, the Court overruled the demurrer, and the jury found a verdict for the defendant on the first count of the indictment, and found him guilty on the second count, and assessed his fine at 40 dollars, being twice the amount to be paid for a license to sell goods, wares and merchandize. Upon this verdict the Court entered up a judgment; and the defendant thereupon applied to this Court for a writ of error; and presented as ground of error:
    1st. Because said indictment is defective in both counts in this, that the alleged sale being to two distinct persons, at the same time and place, constituted two separate and distinct offences, which cannot be embraced in one and the same count.
    2d. Because the first count is framed upon the 17th section of the act of March 7th, 1834, and the second count upon the 3d section of said act; a finding upon these counts would require judgments of a different character, and hence they are repugnant and uncertain and void for duplicity, if not for a misjoinder of of-fences.
    3d. Because said indictment is inherently and radically defective in this, that the offences as set forth in the two counts of said indictment are not, in either of them, described in the terms of the statute in such case made and provided ; nor are said offences, or either of them, sufficiently set forth in either of the counts; omitting as they each do the statutory words, “ and certificate.”
   By the Court.

The writ of error is refused.