Case Name: STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. JACOB MAURER, Appellant
Court: St. Louis Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Missouri
Decision Date: 1913-05-06
Citations: 174 Mo. App. 162
Docket Number: 
Parties: STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. JACOB MAURER, Appellant.
Judges: Nortoni, J., concurs.
Reporter: Missouri Appeal Reports
Volume: 174
Pages: 162–173

Head Matter:
STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. JACOB MAURER, Appellant.
St. Louis Court of Appeals,
May 6, 1913.
FOOD: Sale of Imitation Butter: Sufficiency of Information. An information charging that defendant unlawfully sold and offered for sale a substance designed to be used as a substitute for butter, to-wit. oleomargarine, was fatally defective for failure to charge that the substance was “imitation butter or made in the semblance of butter;” following State v. Shortell, ante.
Held, by REYNOLDS, B. J., dissenting, that inasmuch as oleomargarine is an article “other than that produced from pure milk or cream from the same, made in sumblance of butter and designed to be used as a substitute for butter made from pure milk or cream from the same,” it is “imitation butter,” under Sec. 650, R. S. 1909, and hence the charge in the information that oleomargarine was sold “under the name and under the pretense that the same was butter,” was sufficient to bring the offense within the statute.
Appeal from St. Louis Court of Criminal Correction. —Hon. Benj. Klene, Judge.
Reversed and remanded:
Cause certified to Supreme Court.
Zachritz & Zachritz for appellant.
The information charges no violation of law. In order to charge the offense under section 4835 the information should have alleged a sale, or .offer of sale, of the imitation substitute for butter without packing the same in firkins, tubs or paper packages with the true name of said imitation substitute clearly and indelibly branded, marked .or labeled thereon. It is fundamental that an indictment or information predicated upon the provisions of a statute must charge the offense in the language of the statute, and the allegation must be sufficient to fully inform the defendant of the nature and character of the offense he is called upon to answer on his trial. State v. Watson, 216 Mo. 420; State v. G-ibbs, 129 Mo. App. 700; State v. Haney, 130 Mo. 95; State v. Lentz, 184 Mo. 223.
Elliott W. Major, Attorney-General, and Campbell Cummings, Assistant Attorney-General, and John P. Leahy for respondent.

Opinion:
ALLEN, J.
Defendant was convicted of selling a substance designed to be used as a substitute for butter, under the name of and under the pretense that the same was butter. The information charges that the defendant "in the city of St. Louis, on the 15th day of October, 1909, did, by a clerk, at No. 8 South Jefferson avenue, in said city, unlawfully sell and offer for sale a substance designed to be used as a substitute for butter, to-wit, oleomargarine," etc.
The prosecution is based upon section 657, Revised Statutes 1909, and the information does not charge that the substance which it is alleged the defendant sold or offered to sell was "imitation butter," or made in the semblance of butter. In State v. Shortell, just decided, it was held by a majority of this court that an information in this form failed to charge an offense under the statute, and was insufficient to support a conviction. For the reasons there given the information here must be held to be fatally defective.
It is unnecessary to touch upon the other questions involved in the ease. The judgment of the St. Louis Court of Criminal Correction should be reversed and the cause remanded.
Nortoni, J., concurs.
Reynolds, P. J., dissents in a separate opinion, and as he deems the decision rendered herein to be contrary to that of the Supreme Court in State v. Bockstruck, 136 Mo. 335, 38 S. W. 317, and in State v. Hilton, 248 Mo. 522, 154 S. W. 729, and to other decisions cited in his dissenting opinion, he asks that the cause be certified to the Supreme Court, which is accordingly done.