New Britain herald., 1924-11-12
.IN7OXICATION IS
 JUST BEING DRUNK
So Explains Judge in Charging
 Jury in Hills Case
FREED ON ONE CHARGE
No Evidence to Show That Congress mans Home Was a Public Nuis- ance-Definition of Intoxication By Wiley and Kelly Thrown Out.

Baltimore. Nov. 12.-Charging the jury in the trial of Representative John Philip Hill. in the United States district court, for violation of the Volstead act, Judge Morris A. soper today directed the jurymen to ignore the definitions of intoxication as expounded by Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, pure food expert and Dr. Howard A. Kelly of Baltimore.
 These witnesses testified yesterday that cider with 2.7o per cent alcohol and wine with 11.e4 per cent alco- hol are intoxicating. He also told the jury to find Colone Hill not guilty on the fifth and sixth counts of the indictment, which charge him with maintaining common nuisance at his home.
 District Attorney Woodcock's ar- gument was brief and closed the hearing. Among other things he said a conviction would be just as satis- factory to Colonel Hill as an acquit- tai. Colonel Hill and his attorneys voiced strenuous protest to this statement.
 The attorneys for the defendant asked the court to strike the remark from the record and to impress the jury with the fact they were not to consider it In reaching a verdict.
 The jury was given the case at the opening of the afternoon session.
 Only One Question.
 The testimony, the judge said. did not bear out these charges and he therefore dismissed them. Judge Soper then said:
 "The only things which you have to determine in this case are ques- tions of fact which are narrow and few. There is no questioning about the manufacture and possession of the cider and wine. The defendant admits those charges.
 "The question for you to decide is whether the articles the defendant manufactured and possessed are as described in the indictment; that is: you must decide whether the fruit juice that he manufactured was wine and was intoxicating in fact"
 Judge soper then told the jury they were not to accept the defini- ton of intoxication as given yester- day by Dr. Howard A. Kelly and Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, who said that any amount of alcohol, no matter how small, produces some degree of in toxication.
 The standard of intoxication which the jury should have in mind, Judge soper said, Is that produced by a beverage which contains enough al- cohol to intoxicate normal man when drunk in such quantities as a man is able to drink.
 Intoxication, the judge added, is what the layman knows as being drunk"
 Refuses Request.
 When Judge Soper has completed his charge, District Attorney Wood cock asked him to instruct the jury that the burden of proof rested on Colonel Hill to prove that his fruit juices were not intoxicating, in fact, and that 1t was not incumbent upon the government to prove that they were intoxicating.
 This Woodcock argued, is pro- vided for in section S3 of the nation al prohibition act.
 Judge Soper, however, declined to take Mir. Woodcock's construction of the law, and declined to 50 charge the jury.
 Judge soper's charge to the jury preceded the argument in the case, which was opened by Arthur w. Machen for the defense.
 Mir. Machen told the jury 1t was not John Philip Hill was was on trial but the last vestige of American liberty" Woodcock objected, and Judge soper told Machen he could not make an i-prohibition speech in court.