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17 Ind. 444

Simpson v. State

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided December 12, 1861

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1861-12-12

<p>An indictment or information, under § 11 of the act of March 5, 1859, (Acts 1859, p. 202,) for selling or giving away liquor to a minor, need not state the kind of liquor sold or given away, but must aver it to have been an “intoxicating liquor;” and on the trial it must appear that the liquor was within the definition of the terms, “intoxicating liquor,” given in § 2 of the act.</p>

Relies on State v. Graeter

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1861-12-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently April 1922

6 state decisions

401861187018801890190019101920decided

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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Wordeh, J.

¶1Indictment for selling, intoxicating liquor to a minor.

¶2*445The indictment charges that the defendant sold to one Thomas Harrington, whom the defendant well knew to be a minor, under the age of twenty-one years, a certain quantity of beer, for a sum named, “the said beer, so sold as aforesaid, being then and there intoxicating liquor.

¶3Motion to quash overruled, .and conviction.

¶4The objection made to the indictment is, that it does not allege the “beer” to have been either “spirituous, vinous, or malt liquor, or any intoxicating liquor whatever, which is used or may be used as a beverage.”

¶5Hie first section of the act of March 5, 1859, (Acts 1859, p. 202,) fixes a penalty for selling any intoxicating liquor by a less quantity than a quart at a time, or to be drunk on the premises of the vendor, without first having procured a license. The eleventh section prohibits, absolutely, the selling, bartering, or giving away of any intoxicating liquors to persons under twenty-one years of age.

¶6The second section of the act provides that the words “intoxicating liquors,” as used in the act, shall apply to any spirituous, vinous, or malt liquor, or to any intoxicating liquor whatever, which is, or may be, used as a beverage.

¶7An indictment need not state the kind of liquor sold, as rum, gin, brandy, beer, ale, &c. It is sufficient if it allege the liquor to have been intoxicating. The State v. Graeter, 6 Blackf. 105; The State v. Mullinix, id. 554.

¶8In both sections of the act defining the offense, and fixing the punishment, the words, “intoxicating liquor,” are employed, as descriptive of the article, the sale of which is interdicted. We know of no rule in criminal pleading which requires, because another section of the statute has defined what is meant by the words, intoxicating liquor, that the pleader should aver that the intoxicating liquor charged to have been sold, comes within the definition thus given. Hie Legislature, in the prohibitory sections, have used the words, “intoxicating liquors,” with reference to the definition given of them in the second section; and the pleader, we think, may well use them in the same manner.

¶9If, on the trial, it should not appear that the article sold was an intoxicating liquor, as defined by the second section *446of the act, there would, of course, be a failure of proof, and the accused would be entitled to an acquittal.

James T. Embree, for the appellant.James G. Jones, Attorney General, for the State.

¶10Per Ouriam.- — The judgment is affirmed, with costs.

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