Court Opinion

ID: 9810529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:52:34.694806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:59.408383
License: Public Domain

Douglas, J.,
dissenting. I can not concur in the judgment of tire Court. Whatever may be my personal views as to the benefits of the dispensary system, I can not ignore the right of one charged with crime to be tried according to the law of the land. To' my mind an indictment must directly ■charge a criminal offense. The jury can not find the defendant guilty of more than is charged in the indictment, and if the facts therein stated are not of themselves sufficient to show the guilt of the defendant if they are found to be true, then no judgment can be pronounced upon the verdict. If every allegation in the bill is consistent with the innocence of the defendant, a verdict that he is “guilty in the manner and form as charged in the bill of indictment” has no legal effect. ■Guilty, of what? Of what the indictment charges, but not of what the law condemns. The penalty is prescribed for violating the law, and where there is no violation of the la.w no penalty can be imposed.
In the case at bar every word in the indictment may be true, and yet the defendant may not be guilty of any criminal act, because it is not charged that the dispensary had been opened, an essential requisite to any conviction under the act. The essential parts of sec. 3, of the Act, are as follows: “The said dispensary board on the first day of July, 1899, or as soon thereafter as possible, shall establish one dispensary in said city, to be located on one of the principal streets, for the sale of spirituous, vinous and malt liquors, and there shall be no prosecution under this act for the sale of liquor until smd dispensary shall be openThe latter part is not an exception or even a proviso, but is a part of the very *1110sentence itself which establishes the dispensary. There is not even a semicolon between them, only ai comma. It does not profess to “withdraw” any individual or class “from the operation of the statute,” but withdraws the statute itself from operation as to any criminal effect until the condition is complied with. It is in the nature of a condition precedent which must be strictly complied with before the statute can have any penal effect whatsoever. So far from there being’ a “clear presumption” that the law went into force on July 1,1899 (by which T suppose is meant the criminal operation of the law), this presumption is rebutted by the statute itself, which specifically provides (1) for' its failure toi do so, and (2) that it shall not do SO' until after the happening of a certain event. This event might never have happened. Indeed, the author of the bill evidently anticipated some trouble!, as he provided in one place that the city of Greensboro should appropriate $2,000 or as much thereof as might be necessary to establish the dispensary; and then immediately provided that the dispensary board might establish said dispensary without receiving said appropriation. His foresight was justified by subsequent event, as the city has been enjoined from appropriating tire money. Qarsed v. Greensboro, at this'term. All these anticipations, precautions and provisos, arising on the face of the act, tend strongly to show that there is no legal presumption that the dispensary was opened on July 1, 1899. The very reasoning of the opinion, with the authorities cited therein, prevents me from concurring in its conclusion.
The opinion of the Court says: “In the last-named case (State v. Norman, 13 N. C., 222), Henderson, C. J., draws a clear distinction between a proviso' which withdraws a case from the operation of a statute, which is a matter of defense, and need not be negatived in the indictment, and a condition *1111upon the existence of which the statute dependswhich must he averred” To my mind the case at bar comes clearly within the second class, as its existence as a criminal statute absolutely depends upon the establishment of the dispensary.
Again it is said this case is not like State v. Chambers. I think it is. In that case the act making it a misdemeanor to sell liquor in the town of Morganton was not to go into effect until after ratification, by a vote of the people. In the case at bar, an act making it a misdemeanor to sell liquor in the city of Greensboro is not to go into effect until after the opening of the dispensary. In Chambers’ case, this Court said it could not take judicial notice that an election had been held, and of the result thereof. Neither can we take judicial notice that a dispensary has been established in Greensboro. In Chambers’ case, this Court held that the indictment was fatally defective because it did not allege “that the contingency happened upon which it became unlawful and indictable to sell spirituous liquors within the area of the territory specified.” Why is not the indictment in the case at bar fatally defective inasmuch as it failed to. allege that the contingency had happened — the opening of the dispensary. — -upon which alone the statute in question could have any criminal operation? I fail to see. Whoever the prisoner may be, or whatever he may have done, he is presumed to be innocent until lawfully convicted, and is entitled to a fair and impartial trial according to> “the law of the land.”
I am in favor of a prompt and faithful enforcement of the law, without useless delay or needless technicality, but I am not in favor of breaking down, by judicial construction, all the barriers which the wisdom of the common law has erected around the liberty of the citizen.