Court Opinion

ID: 9670607
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:23:26.00803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:05.600574
License: Public Domain

CATES, Presiding Judge
(concurring).
I concur in all that Judge Blanton has written.
However, I should modify the last sentence of Part II of his opinion by a consideration of the rules of interpretation of criminal statutes discussed by Simpson, J., in Dorgan v. State, 29 Ala.App. 362, 196 So. 160.
From a reading of Fuller v. State, 39 Ala.App. 219, 96 So.2d 829, it is obvious that Code 1940, T. 22, §§ 232-255 was so drafted as to put the burden of coming forth with prescriptions on the defendant. This, however, is not true of all statutory crimes. How the offense is constituted is critical to whether or not the State or prosecution need prove various circumstances. State v. Pascagoula Veneer Co., Miss., 227 So.2d 286(2); 22A C.J.S. Criminal Law § 572.
This indictment was laid under Alabama Drug Abuse Control Act which has since been repealed by § 508(b)(4) of the misnamed1 Uniform Alabama Controlled Substances Act (No. 1407) approved September 16, 1971.
Under the former Drug Abuse Control Act § 2(c) prohibited the possession of a drug [as defined in § 1(b)(1) and § 1(c)(2)] contrary to § 5(c). Section 3 of the Drug Abuse Control Act sets out the penalties. Thus, I consider that § 5(c), for present purposes, malees the possession of any depressant or stimulant drug illegal “unless” under prescription and in the original container. The clause introduced by “unless” I treat as a proviso rather than an exception.
Hence, the defense had the risk of non persuasion on availing itself of the proviso. Had this been an exception the State would have had to negative the existence of a prescription. Sizemore v. State, 45 Ala.App. 126, 226 So.2d 669.
Thus, in People v. Devinny, 227 N.Y. 397, 125 N.E. 543, we find:
“The general rule is that in dealing with a statutory crime exceptions must be negatived by the prosecution and provisos utilized as a matter of defense. Attempts to apply this general rule and distinguish between exceptions and provisos have resulted in many technicalities and in much subtlety. The two classes of provisions — exceptions and provisos —frequently come closely together,, and the rule of differentiation ought to be so applied as to comply with the requirements of common sense and reasonable pleading. * * *”
Black’s Law Dictionary, p. 668, says in part:
“ * * * An exception exempts, absolutely, from the operation of * * * an enactment; a proviso, properly speaking, defeats their operation, conditionally. An exception takes out of an * * * enactment something which would otherwise be a part of the subject-matter of it; a proviso avoids them by way of defeasance or excuse. :|c *
See Pabst Brewing Co. v. City of Milwaukee, 148 Wis. 582, 133 N.W. 1112.
Here, I think it is clear that under the now repealed Drug Abuse Act showing that the drugs were prescribed was a proviso, i. e., an excuse available to the defendant.
Incidentally, this leads me to conclude that I should not have concurred in the reversal of Hall v. State, 50 Ala.App. 666, 282 So.2d 104 (1973).

. The misnomer arises from the Act’s failure to follow the Uniform Act in many basic aspects.