Cluff v. State

142 P. 644, 16 Ariz. 179, 1914 Ariz. LEXIS 117
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedJune 23, 1914
DocketCriminal No. 357
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 142 P. 644 (Cluff v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cluff v. State, 142 P. 644, 16 Ariz. 179, 1914 Ariz. LEXIS 117 (Ark. 1914).

Opinion

ROSS, J.

The defendant and appellant was convicted of selling intoxicating liquors in a prohibition district in Graham county. He appeals from judgment of conviction and order [180]*180refusing his motion for a new trial. He assigns as errors the overruling of his general demurrer to the indictment and the giving of an instruction.

The material or charging part of the indictment is as follows:

“The said Moses A. duff on or about the 1st day of July, A. D. 1913, and before the finding of this indictment, at the county of Graham, state of Arizona, after a local option election had been held in that subdivision of Graham county in. which this act occurred and said election had resulted in favor of prohibition, and after the board of supervisors of Graham county had made the order declaring the result of said election, and after the board of supervisors had made the order of prohibition and had caused said order to be published as required by law, did willfully and unlawfully, within the prescribed bounds of prohibition, sell and exchange to one-Henry Oleson one pint of alcohol, an intoxicating liquor; said sale being then and there made with the purpose of evading the provisions of the local option law of Arizona, being title 43 of the Revised Statutes of 1901.”

The Arizona local option law (chapter 43, Rev. Stats. 1901 ^ title 31, Rev. Stats. 1913) was originally lifted from the local option laws of Texas, and the section thereof (3829, Rev. Stats. 1913) by which the indictment is to be tested has remained unchanged. According to the rulings of the Texas courts, this indictment is sufficient. Sedberry v. State, 14 Tex. App. 233; Key v. State, 37 Tex. Cr. 77, 38 S. W. 773; Willis v. State, 37 Tex. Cr. 82, 38 S. W. 776; Shilling v. State (Tex. Cr. App.), 51 S. W. 240.

The offense charged is purely statutory, and the general rule is that an indictment or information that employs the language of the statute defining the crime or equivalent language, is sufficient. The language laid in this indictment, describing the offense, asserts the essentials of the crime defined by section 3829, supra. The demurrer was properly overruled.

The prosecuting witness Oleson testified to several sales of liquor to him by appellant, giving dates of three of his purchases, one in June, one July 20th, and one in August, 1913. He testified to sales made by appellant to other persons. The evidence was to the effect: That appellant owned a drug-store- [181]*181and carried a stock of liquor therein. That in July he received- in one' shipment a barrel of whisky, one of grape brandy, one of sherry wine, and one of blackberry cordial. That it was a common thing for three or four men addicted to strong drink to congregate in appellant’s corral, a short distance from the drug-store, early of mornings before the people of the village were around, and, while no one saw them drinking, they would become intoxicated. The prosecuting witness was frequently seen going to and from the drug-store in an intoxicated condition, and was twice seen in the drugstore placing something in his pocket that looked like a bottle. The theory of the defense seemed to be: (1) That prosecuting witness procured liquor from Miami or Globe; or (2) that he stole it from appellant’s drug-store, or both, and that what was sold him by appellant was barrette, Chamberlain’s Heart Remedy and Jamaica Ginger. Appellant testified that he never sold any liquor at all.” We detail this evidence for the purpose of showing the hypothesis upon which the instruction complained of was given by the court. There is no complaint here of the admission of the evidence showing the different sales of liquor to the prosecuting witness or other persons.

The objection to the instruction is that it fails to define and limit the purpose of allowing proof of other sales. The appellant’s criticism is not directed to the whole instruction, hut to a part of it only. We give the whole instruction, which is as follows:

“As I stated to you, the date of the offense relied upon is alleged in the indictment to have been July 1st. However, as stated by the county attorney, the date is July 20th, and that is the date you are to consider on which the offense was committed, if at all. Evidence has been introduced relative to other and distinct acts of the defendant. This evidence is to be considered by you, and has been admitted by the court for the purpose of aiding you in determining whether the defendant did or did not commit the act charged on July 20th. Evidence of distinct and separate acts has been admitted as corroborative of the principal charge, in so far as it tends to throw light on the main charge. You are not trying him for the commission of any of these other acts, and should not find him guilty merely because you may find from [182]*182the evidence that he has committed other specific offenses not alleged in this indictment. You are trying him for the commission of the crime alleged in the indictment alone, and should not find him guilty unless, upon the whole evidence, you can say that he is proven guilty of that charge beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, in so far as the evidence of other acts of the defendant throws light upon the commission of the offense charged in the indictment, you have the right to consider it. If it does not throw such light, you should disregard it.”

While we would not commend this instruction as a model, when applied to the facts of this case, it seems to us that the jury must have understood therefrom that evidence of other sales of liquor by the defendant was to be considered by them in connection with the theory of the defense and to show the improbability of the contention that the prosecuting witness stole the liquor or brought it from Miami or Globe when he and others had bought it from appellant at different times, or the improbability of all the bottled goods sold by appellant to the prosecuting witness being barrette, or Chamberlain’s Heart Remedy, or Jamaica Ginger. The jury were told that a conviction could be had only on the particular sale of July 20, 1913, the sale elected by. the state, and that that sale must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. That evidence of other sales was for the purpose of corroboration and to throw light on the offense charged, to wit, the sale of July 20th.

The law recognizes that it is almost impossible to secure convictions for violations of the local option and other liquor laws, if the evidence is confined to a single sale, as ordinarily the criminal act is witnessed only by the buyer and seller; but observation and common knowledge teach that isolated and secret sales make up and constitute the business or sometimes an important feature of the business of the accused in these cases, and, for that reason, the facts and circumstances of other sales than the particular one charged are admitted as in corroboration of and to throw light on the offense charged. Childress v. State, 48 Tex. Cr. 617, 90 S. W. 30; State v. Peterson, 98 Minn. 210, 108 N. W. 6.

Most of the sales testified to in this case were sales made to the prosecuting witness. The appellant denied ever making any sale to him. This being the issue, why was not proof of other sales to the prosecuting witness than the one relied [183]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
142 P. 644, 16 Ariz. 179, 1914 Ariz. LEXIS 117, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cluff-v-state-ariz-1914.