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14 Mo. 137

Schmidt v. State

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided March 15, 1851

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1851-03-15

Louis Criminal Court. I. If the defendant sold by his clerk or agent, he is liable as well as the clerk. Hays vs.^ the State, decided at the last May term of this court. II. Nor did the court err in instructing the jury that it was incumbent upon the defendant to produce his license to sell, and in default thereof they must find that he had no license authorizing him to sell. Wheat vs, the State, 6 Mo. 455.

Cited in Bouvier (1914)’s definition of “Accessory”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1851-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently November 1915

14 state decisions

501851186018701880189019001910decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Ryland, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This case presents the instructions given below for our adjudication.

¶3The evidence is not saved nor presented to us. We presume the evidence justified the court in giving the instructions : if so, we must believe there was proof that the clerk of the defendant by his directions and' under his control and employment sold the intoxicating or spiritous liquors mentioned in the indictment, and that there was no license to the defendant authorizing him to sell, &c.

¶4We find no fault with the instructions given. The grand jury might indict either the master or the clerk, and having indicted the master, it shall not avail him to say his clerk sold the liquors at his grocery under his control and direction.

¶5If this could avail the employer, he would only have to employ a clerk, irresponsible in a pecuniary point of view, and there he might carry on this demoralizing and pauper-making business without license and in defiance of law.

¶6We think he should suffer for the acts he makes and directs his ser« vant to perform. It is his duty to produce his license ; having failed to do so, let him pay the penalty.

¶7Judgment affirmed.

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