Lehman v. District of Columbia

19 App. D.C. 217, 1902 U.S. App. LEXIS 5381
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedJanuary 7, 1902
DocketNo. 1094
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 19 App. D.C. 217 (Lehman v. District of Columbia) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lehman v. District of Columbia, 19 App. D.C. 217, 1902 U.S. App. LEXIS 5381 (D.C. Cir. 1902).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Morris

delivered the opinion of the Court:

Information was filed in the police court of the District of Columbia against the plaintiff in error on March 6, 1901, for alleged violation of the act of Congress of March 3, 1893, regulating the sale of intoxicating liquors in the District. The first count charged him with the sale of intoxicating liquors on Sunday; and the second count, with keeping Ms barroom open on the same day. On trial before a jury, verdict was rendered against him on both counts; and he then filed motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment. Both motions were overruled, and sentence was pronounced against him; and thereupon he brought Ms case to tMs court upon writ of error allowed to him in pursuance of exceptions reserved at the trial.

[222]*222There are twelve assignments of error; bnt the questions involved are reduced by the counsel for the plaintiff in error to four. These are: (1) That of the sufficiency of the information; (2) That of the correctness of the rulings of the court as given to the jury; (3) Whether, in view of certain extraneous proceedings which occurred at the time of the trial, the accused had a fair and impartial trial; (4) Whether the failure to keep a barroom closed on Sunday is, under the statute, a separate and distinct offense from that of the sale of liquor on that day. And this fourth question is to some extent involved also in the first.

1. The information charged in the first count that the accused, being “ the keeper of a licensed barroom or place where intoxicating liquors are sold, under the provisions of the act of Congress entitled ‘An act to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors in the District of Columbia/ approved March 3, 1893, on the third day of March, in the year 1901, on Seventh street northwest, in the city of Washington, District of Columbia aforesaid, did then and there keep and have said place for the sale of and did sell intoxicating liquors on said day, the said day being Sunday;” and in the second count, that the accused, “ on said third day of March, in the year aforesaid, did fail to have his barroom or place of business for the sale of intoxicating liquors closed on said day, the said day being Sunday,” all in violation of the act of Congress aforesaid.' Under the motion in arrest of judgment, it was argued that this information is fatally defective, inasmuch as it fails to show affirmatively “ that the defendant was not the keeper of a hotel or tavern having a license under the act of Congress mentioned in the information, and that the sales charged were not sales made to bona fide registered guests in the said hotel or tavern at the meals or in the rooms of such guests;” in other words, that the information fails to state, by express allegation to that effect, that the defendant did not come within the exception provided in the statute itself.

The sixth section of the statute it is which prohibits the sale of intoxicating liquors on Sunday and the keeping open [223]*223of barrooms on that day, as well as during certain specified hours of the night; and the same section contains three several provisos, in which there is provision for three several exceptions to the rule. The first of these is to the effect “ that the keeper of any hotel or tavern having a license under this act may sell intoxicating liquors to bona fide registered guests in his hotel or tavern at the meals or in the rooms of such guests”—meaning that such keeper of a hotel or tavern may so sell on Sunday or during the other prohibited times. The argument is that it was necessary for the prosecution to allege in express terms, and consequently also to prove, that the defendant was not the keeper of a hotel or tavern, having a license so to sell.

This argument does not appear to be well founded. The general rule on this subject, as deduced from numerous authorities on the point, is well stated by the Encyclopedia of Pleading and Practice, vol. 11, p. 533, title, Intoxicating Liquors, in these words:

“An exception contained in the enacting clause of the-statute, or made a part thereof by reference, should be negatived in the indictment (or information); it is otherwise, however, where the exception is not a part of the enacting clause by incorporation or reference, but is contained in a subsequent clause, proviso, section or statute.”

But this statement, and the cases cited in support of it, leave it somewhat indefinite as to when a proviso super-added to an enacting clause is to be regarded as incorporated therein. In the case, however, of Nelson v. United States, 30 Fed. Rep. 112, the true distinction seems to be sufficiently indicated. There it was said:

“As a rule, an exception in a statute by which certain particulars are withdrawn from or excepted out of the enacting clause thereof, defining a crime concerning a class or species, constitutes no part of the definition of such crime, whether placed close to or remote from such enacting clause. And whenever a person accused of the commission of such a crime claims to be within such exception, it is more logical and convenient that he should aver and prove the fact than [224]*224that the prosecution should anticipate such defense and deny it.”

It is therefore necessary and proper to negative apparent exception and immunity in so far only as such exception or immunity enters into the description of the alleged offense; but it is not necessary to anticipate excuse by alleging that there is no ground for such excuse. We might well illustrate the proposition if we supposed a statute wherein the prohibition was upon the sale of all intoxicating liquors, except wine. Evidently an information or indictment to the effect that the accused person sold intoxicating liquors, without negativing the fact that it was wine that was sold, might well be held insufficient, wherever in the statute the exception appeared; for the offense under the statute was not the sale of intoxicating liquors, but the sale of such liquors other than wine. The definition of the offense might be held incomplete without the exclusion of the exception by negative averment. But if in the same statute provision was made, as it was made in our act of Congress of March 3, 1893, that certain persons, under certain circumstances, might sell intoxicating liquors without subjecting themselves to the penalties prescribed against all persons in general engaging in the- traffic, it is very clear that it is for the accused person to bring himself within the category of persons so entitled to immunity, and to show the existence of the circumstances by virtue of which the immunity arises, and that it is not incumbent on the prosecutor to anticipate the defense.

We are of opinion, therefore, that it was not necessary in the present case that the information should allege that the defendant did not come within the scope of the proviso concerning keepers of hotels and taverns.

2. In this connection, also, it is claimed on behalf of the plaintiff in error, that no offense under the statute is charged in the second count of the information, which alleged merely that the defendant failed to have his barroom or place of business for the sale of intoxicating liquors closed on Sunday. It is said that the true intent of the statute was to [225]*225prohibit the opening of the barroom for the purpose of selling intoxicating liquors, and not that it might not be kept open for a lawful purpose.

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Bluebook (online)
19 App. D.C. 217, 1902 U.S. App. LEXIS 5381, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lehman-v-district-of-columbia-cadc-1902.