United States v. Collins

254 F. 869, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 983
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 20, 1919
DocketNo. 2524
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 254 F. 869 (United States v. Collins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Collins, 254 F. 869, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 983 (W.D. La. 1919).

Opinion

JACK, District Judge.

The defendant in count 1 of the indictment stands charged with violation of that part of the postal appropriation act of March 3, 1917 (39 Stat. 1069, c. 162 [Comp. St. 1918, § 8739a]), known as the “Reed Amendment,” which is as follows:

“Whoever shall order, purchase, or cause intoxicating liquors to be transported in interstate commerce, except for scientific, sacramental, medicinal, and mechanical purposes, into any state or territory, the laws of which state or territory prohibit the manufacture or sale therein of intoxicating liquors [870]*870for beverage purposes, shall be punished as aforesaid: Provided, that nothing herein, shall authorize the shipment of liquor into any state contrary to the laws of such state”

—in that he did, in the parish of Caddo,

“unlawfully, knowingly and willfully, and with intent to transport the intoxicating liquors hereinafter described, from the said parish of Oaddo, state of liouisiana, to Texarkana, in the state of Texas, the said state then and there being a state wherein the manüfacture of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes was prohibited by law, order, purchase, and cause to be transported in interstate commerce, a certain shipment of intoxicating liquor, to wit, ten cases of whisky; that is to say, did order, purchase, and cause the said intoxicating liquor to be transported in interstate commerce, from the city of Monroe, Louisiana, and into the parish of Oaddo, Louisiana, and with said state of Texas as the destination of said transportation, by transporting the same in an automobile from the said city of Monroe, Louisiana, to the parish of Oaddo, and which said intoxicating liquor was not then and there being transported for sacramental, scientific, medicinal, or mechanical purposes, contrary to the form of the statute,” etc.

In count 2 of the indictment the same offense at the same time and place is charged, the only difference being that in this count the intended destination of the liquors transported was the county of Bowie, which county was a county wherein, under the local option law of Texas, the sale of intoxicating liquors was prohibited.

The second count is based on the assumption -that, even though the state of Texas has not legally adopted state-wide prohibition, the Reed amendment is applicable to an interstate shipment of intoxicating liquors into a “dry” county of that state.

The defendant has moved to quash the indictment. It is contended that the Reed amendment is applicable only to those states where both the sale and the manufacture of intoxicating liquors is prohibited throughout the state, and that under a recent decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (Ex parte Myer, 207 S. W. 100, not yet officially reported), that section of the state-wide prohibition law of Texas prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors has been declared unconstitutional. The section prohibiting the manufacture of such liquors was not at issue and so was not passed on.

[1] As will be noted by reference to the Reed amendment previously quoted, it is applicable to any state the laws of which prohibit “the manufacture or sale therein of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes.” Thus it is sufficient if either the manufacture or the sale is prohibited. The attention of the court is called to a line of decisions in which the disjunctive “or” is sometimes construed as “and,” but I do not think such a construction applicable in this case. Congress had the authority to prohibit the shipment of intoxicating liquors into states which prohibit the manufacture of liquors, or which prohibit the sale of liquors, either one or the other, or both, and there is no good reason to conclude that Congress did not intend exactly what it said.

It is further argued, however, that under the recent Texas statute, not only is the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors prohibited, but likewise their importation from another state, and that if the Legislature of Texas, as held by the Court of Criminal Appeals of that [871]*871state, was without authority to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors, it could not do so indirectly by prohibiting their manufacture in the state and their importation from without the state, as this would necessarily make the sale impossible after the limited supply on hand was exhausted; consequently, that while the Court of Criminal Appeals had before it only the question of the sale of intoxicating liquors, it would necessarily follow that the remainder of the law was likewise unconstitutional and that that court, to be consistent, would have ü> so hold whenever the question was brought up.

[2] While this court will accept the ruling of the highest state court of criminal jurisdiction as to the constitutionality of a statute of that state, even though it may itself entertain a contrary view, it will not anticipate and be guided by what that court might hereafter hold. The state law, as it now stands, prohibits the manufacture of intoxicating liquors in Texas for beverage purposes, and thus brings transportation of such liquors within the Reed amendment. In the recent case of United States v. Dan Hill, 248 U. S. 420, 39 Sup. Ct. 143, 63 L. Ed. — , the Supreme Court of the United States held the Reed amendment applicable to liquors intended for personal use, aldiough under the state law they might be shipped in. Thus the purpose of the Reed amendment is not merely to assist the various states in enforcing prohibition to the limited extent, provided by their statutes. If is a law unto itself; passed under the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, and its applicability to intoxicating liquors shipped into a state for beverage purposes is conditioned only on that state’s having prohibited the manufacture or having prohibited the sale of such liquors for beverage purposes.

[3] This condition, however, that the state shall have prohibited the manufacture or sale of liquors clearly means such prohibition within the entire state. This is made plain by the provision in the act immediately preceding the Reed amendment which forbids the mailing of any letter or newspaper containing advertisements of intoxicating liquors addressed to—

“any place or point in any state or territory of tlie United States, at wMcli it is, by tlie law in force in the state or territory at that time, unlawful to advertise or solicit orders for said liquors,”

Congress was careful to make this inhibition applicable, not only to advertisements mailed to any point in a state in which state-wide prohibition prevails, but also to such advertisements mailed to any point in the state at which point the sale of such liquors is prohibited. If in the Reed amendment, immediately following, it had been intended to make it likewise applicable to “dry” sections of a “wet” state, it would, as in the preceding section, have been so specifically provided. In the case of McAdams v. Wells Fargo Express Co. (D. C.) 249 Fed. 175, cited by counsel as holding the contrary, the sole issue presented appears to have been whether the act was applicable to liquors shipped for personal use and not for sale. No contention was made, as in the case at bar, that the Reed amendment did not apply to intoxicating liquors shipped into prohibition territory of a [872]*872local option state. In the case of State ex rel. Brewing Co. v.

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Related

Moran v. United States
264 F. 768 (Sixth Circuit, 1920)
Collins v. United States
263 F. 657 (Fifth Circuit, 1920)
United States v. Collins
264 F. 380 (W.D. Louisiana, 1919)

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Bluebook (online)
254 F. 869, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 983, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-collins-lawd-1919.