Court Opinion

ID: 9807601
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:10:54.672032+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:46:16.607018
License: Public Domain

Clark, 0. J.,
concurs in result on the following additional grounds:
1. Even if “the defendant had acted in good faith in purchasing the liquor in Virginia, for the mere accommodation of Pink Thorne,” it would have been no defense, for Revisal, 3534, provides: “If any person shall unlawfully and illegally procure and deliver any spirituous or malt liquors to another he shall be deemed and held in law to be the agent of the person selling said spirituous or malt liquors, and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished in the discretion of the court.” It had been held in S. v. Taylor, 89 N. C., 577, that “When a defendant purchases intoxicating liquors in good faith for another, as his agent, he is not guilty.” It was to cure the mischief of this decision that Revisal, 3534, was enacted. This statute was sustained by Brown, J., in S. v. Johnston, 139 N. C., 640, and by Walker, J., in S. v. Burchfield, 149 N. C., 541, and even though the liquor was brought in from another State, Vinegar Co. v. Hawn, ib., 356.
2. If it be objected that, applying the above statute, the sale must be ascribed to Richmond, Va., to avoid this evasion the General Assembly enacted Revisal, 2080, which provides: "Place of Delivery of Liquor, Place of Sale. The place where delivery of any intoxicating liquor is *172made in'the State of North Carolina shall be construed and held to be the place of sale thereof.” In S. v. Patterson, 134 N. C., 612, this statute was held constitutional, the Court saying (at p. 616) : “It would be a vain thing to prohibit the sale of liquor in any designated territory if vendors a short distance off can at will fill orders coming from within the prohibition territory upon the judicial fiction that the sale is complete upon delivery to the carrier, who is construed as agent of the vendee. Whether it may or not require an act of Congress to make a similar change as to liquor shipped into prohibited territory from points outside the State in no wise affects the power of the State to so provide when the shipment is from another point in the State.” This has now been done by the United States act, ratified 3 March, 1913, known as the “Webb-Kenyon” law.
S. v. Patterson was cited as authority, S. v. Long, 134 N. C., 754. In S. v. Herring, 145 N. C., at p. 421, Hoke, J., citing it, held: “The Legislature has the authority, and it is not unconstitutional, to make the place of delivery the place of sale in a county where the sale of spirituous liquor is prohibited.” At that time the sale of liquor was prohibited in only a part of the State. In S. v. Williams, 146 N. C., at p. 630, Connor, J., said: “If the quantity of intoxicating liquor which any person, for any purpose, has in his ^possession, except those named in the act, is a public nuisance in Burke County, it is unquestionably in the power pf the Legislature to make it criminal to carry it there.”
In S. v. Mugler, 123 U. S., 623, it was held that the Legislature could prohibit any one from manufacturing liquor, “though solely for his own use.” If so, the Legislature can make it illegal to import it at all. If it has power to make it unlawful to sell it, it can make it unlawful to buy it, for it is the same transaction. It is a vain thing, to prohibit liquor being “manufactured” in a county if the Legislature is powerless to prohibit it from being “imported.” If the act of the Legislature was powerless heretofore to prohibit the importation from another State, this has now been cured by. the Webb-Kenyon law, which gives the State the same power as if the liquor had been manufactured in this State.
Independent, therefore, of the reasons so well given in the opinion of the Court in this ease, the defendant should be held guilty; certainly this is so as to all “imports” since the passage of the Webb-Kenyon law. Our statute, Revisal, 2080, making the “place of delivery of liquor the place of sale,” applies irrespective whether the place of origin is in another State or within this State. And Revisal, 3534, makes the person who procures it for the purchaser guilty of a misdemeanor.