The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1921-02-03

Far Reaching Decision

Just how far the rule of confiScation
of vehicles involved in the tranSpor-
tation of Intoxicating liquors may be
applied in future decisions is not
known AS the law now stands, any
vehicle used in the transportation OF
liquor may be confiscated by the gov
eminent whether or not owner is per-
sonaIly concerned IN the transaction
or not, or whether he has any knowl-
edge of the use to which his vehicle
may be put.
The supreme court is answering the
suggestion of the attorneys for the
defense in a case before that body in
volving the confiscation of an auto
mobile said to have been used in
transporting liquor from one point to
another said that what would be-
come of a Pullman car or an ocean
going vessel upon which liquor is car
ried was not before the court and
would not be settled until such a case
was presented.
But as the matter is thus left open,
there is nothing upon which to base
a supposition that the value of the
vehicle used would have any influence
on that or any other court in reaching
a decision as to the violation of the
law, as it now stands.
In a more recent Kentucky case,
the government has secured a deci-
sion that land upon which an illicit
still is operated may be confiscated
to the extend of compelling the owner
of the land to pay the fines assessed
against the operator of the still, even
if the land owner was not q, party to
the stills operation and had no knowl-
edge that his property was being made
use of to violate the law.
Both the confiscation decision
against vehicles and the decision
against land used illegally in the pro-
duction of liquor are far-reaching, and
will impose evtreme burdens not only
upon owners of automobiles and other
vehicles but upon land owners, as well.
Throughout this country there are
millions of land owners and thousands
of corporations owning large and
small tracts of land, which, in the very
nature of things, they cannot person
| ally supervise. 1t will be a physical
| impossibility for them so closely to
guard their properties that unauthor-
| lied persons may not erect stills and
operate them for a time. Even the
ordinary farmer may not be able to
|
reptitiously engaging in the outlawed
business. But he must see to it that
nothing of the sort goes on on his
land, or he may be called upon to pay
the rather stiff fines provided, by
the Volstead law, although he, himself,
may have been entirely guiltless in
the matter.
Apparently the law, under the con-
bn
confiscation of a passenger coach, or
perhaps the whole train, upon which
a passenger with a hip pocket bottle
might be travelling when detected by
the officers. The same rule that ap-
plies to vehicles of the. lesser sort
would seem to apply to every other,
and the steamships where a passen-
ger includes in his personal baggag e
u quart of the forbidden stuff might
also be confiscated by the government.
In neither of these cases can the OPP
! Grating corporations be assured that
each and every passenger is not the
J possessor and the conyeyor of small
quantities of the stuff. In fact, il will
| be dangerous to invite a friend to ride
in ones automobile unless the friend
consents to a thorough examination
| of baggage and person.
There are scarcely any limits to
which these decisions will not take us
in their development. The owner of
no landed property nor the owner of
any vehicle can rest assured that his
property will not be taken from him,
| even if he, himself, has been entirely
| innocent of any participation in the
actual crime of which the government
may complain.-Miami Herald.