Court Opinion

ID: 9810773
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:58:44.578057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:12.437300
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. L.,
concurring in the result: I agree with the following definition of prima facie, given in the opinion of the Court, that it is “in judgment of law sufficient to establish the ultimate fact, and if not explained or rebutted remains sufficient for that purpose.”
I also agree cordially with the statement in the opinion that the Search and Seizure law and the other prohibition statutes “are the laws of this State and should be enforced strictly and rigidly according to the intention of the Legislature in passing them”; and further, that, as is so well said in the opinion, “If we unsettle the foundation of the law by substituting our own individual opinion of what is right, often biased and prejudiced, for the safer, wiser, and more temperate rule of the law, we will surely bring discredit upon our decisions and justly merit, as we will certainly receive, the condemnation of the people.”
*490When the Legislature saw fit to make the possession of liquor, more than one gallon in quantity, prima facie evidence of an intent to sell, it was acting within its powers, and in ascertaining the meaning of the Legislature we must take it that they meant to use words in their ordinary and general acceptation. The words "prima facie evidence” are defined in Webster’s International Dictionary as meaning “evidence sufficient, in law, to raise a presumption of fact or establish the fact in question, unless rebutted.” We must presume that the Legislature had such meaning in mind when such words were used in the statute.
Indeed, the Court in the.opinion in this ease uses that very definition. Not until very recent years has a different idea been advanced and a distinction between “the burden of the issue”- and the “burden of proof” been introduced. Such distinction, it seems to me, is unnecessary (though we have used it more than once) and not easy to be understood by a jury. Such charge has not beefi required by any statute and is entirely judge-made. To my judgment, it is an unnecessary distinction, calculated to confuse a jury. In view of the better tendency in these days _to abolish, and not to create, subtle distinctions, it ought not to be longer recognized. An inadvertent disregard of this distinction by a judge in his charge may sometimes result in the acquittal of a guilty man. But it is hardly conceivable that its use will ever militate to the better ascertainment of the truth, when a prima facie case has been established in the manner required by the statute. The facts should be ascertained upon the evidence unhampered by overrefinements in the charge.