Sturgeon v. State

154 P. 1050, 17 Ariz. 513, 1916 Ariz. LEXIS 133
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 12, 1916
DocketCriminal No. 393
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 154 P. 1050 (Sturgeon 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
Sturgeon v. State, 154 P. 1050, 17 Ariz. 513, 1916 Ariz. LEXIS 133 (Ark. 1916).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

The appellant was tried and convicted under an information that charged him with bringing and introducing into the state of Arizona from outside the limits of [515]*515said state intoxicating liquor, to wit, one quart of wine. He demurred to the information on the ground that it did not negative that it was introduced for his personal use. The demurrer was overruled. On the trial he offered to prove that he brought the intoxicating liquor into the state for his personal use. This offer of proof was denied by the court. From the judgment of conviction this appeal is prosecuted, the appellant assigning as errors the order overruling his demurrer and the refusal of his offer of evidence of intended personal use. The question, then, as to whether one may introduce into the state of Arizona intoxicating liquors for his personal use, is squarely presented for decision.

The prohibition amendment to the Constitution (article 23, section 1) reads as follows:

“Ardent spirits, ale, beer, wine, or intoxicating liquor or liquors of whatever kind shall not be manufactured in or introduced into the state of Arizona under any pretense.' Every person who sells, exchanges, gives, barters, or disposes of any ardent spirits, ale, beer, wine, or intoxicating liquor of any kind to any person in the state of Arizona, or who manufactures, or introduces into, or attempts to introduce into the state of Arizona any ardent spirits, ale, beer, wine, or intoxicating liquor of any kind, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be imprisoned for not less than ten days nor more than two years and fined not less than twenty-five dollars and costs nor more than three hundred dollars and costs for each offense; provided, that nothing in this amendment contained shall apply to the manufacture or sale of denatured alcohol.”

Three crimes are defined and denounced by this section; (1) The traffic in intoxicating liquors; (2) the manufacture of intoxicating liquors; and (3) the introducing or attempt to introduce into the state of intoxicating liquors.

The offense with which the appellant is charged falls within the third class. It is his contention that the provision of the constitutional amendment making it a crime to introduce into the state intoxicating liquors is unconstitutional, as an attempt to regulate interstate commerce. There can be no mistaking the meaning of the language used in the amendment with regard to the introduction of intoxicating liquors; it plainly and clearly attempts to forbid and punish every [516]*516person “who . . . introduces into, or attempts to introduce into the state of Arizona ’ ’ intoxicating liquors.

In Brown v. State, ante, p. 314, 152 Pac. 578, we had occasion to refer to the source from which our prohibition amendment to the Constitution was taken. It was found to be a rescript, with such modifications as to make it applicable to the state, from the act of Congress regulating trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes.

In United States v. Holliday, 3 Wall. 407-416, 18 L. Ed. 182, Justice MILLER, in searching for the meaning of the congressional act which we adopted, said:

“The act in question, although it may partake of some of the qualities of those acts passed by state legislatures, which have been referred to the police powers of the states, is, we think, still more clearly entitled to be called a regulation of commerce. ‘ Commerce, ’ says Chief Justice MARSHALL, in the opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden [9 Wheat. 1, 6 L. Ed. 23], to which we so often turn with profit when this clause of the Constitution is under consideration, ‘commerce undoubtedly is traffic, but it is something more; it is intercourse.’ The law before us professes to regulate traffic and intercourse with the Indian tribes. It manifestly does both. It relates to buying and selling and exchanging commodities, which is the essence of all commerce, and it regulates the intercourse between the citizens of the United States and those tribes, which is another branch of commerce, and a very important one.

“If the act under consideration is a regulation of commerce, as it undoubtedly is, does it regulate that kind of commerce which is placed within the control of Congress by the Constitution? The words of that instrument are: ‘Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.’ Commerce with foreign nations, without doubt, means commerce between citizens of the United States and citizens or subjects of foreign governments, as individuals. And so commerce with the Indian tribes means commerce with the individuals composing those tribes. The act before us describes this precise kind of traffic or commerce, and therefore comes within the terms of the constitutional provisions.”

[517]*517That feature of our constitutional amendment, therefore, that undertakes to make it a crime to introduce or attempt to introduce intoxicating liquors into the state, under the federal decisions, pertains to commerce, the regulation of which with foreign countries and between the states and with the Indian tribes is exclusively lodged in the Congress.

It has been many times decided by the courts that intoxicating liquors are subjects of interstate commerce to be regulated by congressional legislation, and exempt from state interference. 7 Cyc. 437, and authorities under note 19; Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, 34 L. Ed. 128, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 681; L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Cook Brewing Co., 223 U. S. 70, 56 L. Ed. 355, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 189.

Until 1890, when the Wilson Act was passed (Act Cong. Aug. 8, 1890, c. 728, 26 Stat. 313 [U. S. Comp. Stats. 1913, sec. 8738]), the interstate character of intoxicating liquors had been considered and treated as that of other commodities of interstate traffic. Thus, it has been held that a state prohibition law did not reach or affect intoxicating liquors as long as they remained in the original package. Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, 34 L. Ed. 128, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 681. The Wilson Act worked a radical change in the law, and therefore those decisions rendered by the United States courts prior to its enactment are no longer applicable, and need not be considered in determining the power of the state to suppress the liquor traffic. Under the Wilson Act, intoxicating liquors when imported into one state from another immediately upon delivery to the consignee, whether in the original package or not, become subject to the law of the state. As was said in Delameter v. South Dakota, 205 U. S. 93, 10 Ann. Cas. 733, 51 L. Ed. 724, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 447:

“In other words, that Congress, sedulous to prevent its exclusive right to regulate commerce from interfering with the power of the states over intoxicating liquor, by the Wilson Act adopted a special rule enabling the states to extend their authority as to such liquor shipped from other states before it became commingled with the mass of other property in the state by a sale in the original package.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
154 P. 1050, 17 Ariz. 513, 1916 Ariz. LEXIS 133, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sturgeon-v-state-ariz-1916.