Commonwealth v. Phelps

Decided October 7, 1895

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1895-10-07

Appeal No. 278, Jan. T., 1895, by plaintiff, from order of C. P. Lackawanna Co., Sept. T., 1894, No. 30, reversing judgment of alderman. Certiorari from judgment of alderman convicting defendant of violating Sunday law of 1794. . The written complaint, which was the foundation of the pro ceeding, was as follows: “ The information of F. A. Dony of the city of Scranton, taken upon his oath before I. L. Post, Esq., an alderman in and for the Seventeenth ward oE said city, the 22d day of May, A. D. 1894, the said F. A. Dony saith that on the 20th day of May, A D. 1894, John H. Phelps of the said city of Scranton did keep open on the first day of the week, commonly called Sundaj', his place of business at the corner of Wyoming avenue and Spruce street, as on other days, and did sell soda water and other beverages and articles contrary to the act of assembly of 22d April, 1794.” The warrant followed the complaint and did not state the county in which the alleged offense was committed. Judgment was entered against the defendant by the alderman. The court in an opinion by Edwards, J., reversed the judgment. JError assigned was order as above, reversing judgment.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1895-10-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently December 1968

15 state decisions

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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¶1Opinion by

Mr. Justice McCollum,

¶2In this case as in The Commonwealth v. Gelbert, ante, p. 426, just decided, the complaint on which the conviction is based is fatally defective; the foundation will not suport the superstructure. The defect in fhis case is of the same nature as the defect in that, and it consists of the omission from the complaint of a jurisdictional fact. The written complaint in this case fails to show that the acts mentioned in it were committed in Lackawanna county. For reasons given in The Commonwealth v. Gelbert, supra, we overrule the specifications of error.

¶3Judgment affirmed.