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193 Ind. 549

Keeth v. State

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided June 7, 1923

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1923-06-07

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“as used in [Section 20 of the Prohibition Act] carry with them a notion of continuous or recurrent violation... . The words”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Pruitt v. State

“The words `maintains' and `maintaining' denote continuous or recurrent acts approaching permanence.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Pruitt v. State

Relies on Nace v. State · State v. Lindley · Overman v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1923-06-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently December 1992

8 state decisions

4019231930194019501960197019801990decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Townsend, J.

¶1Appellant was charged by indictment in three counts with the violation of the acts of 1917 (Acts 1917 p. 15, §8356a et seq. Burns’ Supp. 1921) commonly known as the Prohibition Law. Count one was for unlawfully selling under §4 of the act. Count two was for unlawfully manufacturing under §4. Count three was for maintaining a nuisance under §20. Each count charged the violation of the law on February 22, *5501922. At the close of the state’s evidence, the defendant moved to require the state to elect on which of three transactions proved, occurring on February 20, 21, or 22,1922, it expected to rely for a conviction. The court sustained this motion as to the first and second counts, but overruled it as to the third count. The jury returned a verdict specifically finding appellant guilty on the third count. The ruling of the court in refusing to compel the state to elect on which transaction it would rely for conviction as to the third count presents the question that we are to consider here.

¶2Section 20 of the act (Acts 1917 p. 15, supra,) provides that any room, house, building, boat, structure, or place where intoxicating liquor is sold, manufactured, bartered or given away in violation of the law, or where persons resort for the purpose of drinking intoxicating liquor as a beverage, are declared to be a “common nuisance,” and any person who maintains or assists in maintaining such “common nuisance” shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and provides a penalty.

¶3The words “common nuisance” as used in the statute carry with them a notion of continuous or recurrent violation. United States v. Cohen (1920), 268 Fed. 420. Further than this, the section of the statute that we are here considering says: “Any person who maintains or assists in maintaining such common nuisance, shall be guilty”, etc. (Our italics.) The words “maintains” and “maintaining” denote continuous or recurrent acts approaching permanence. We therefore conclude that the case is analogous to those of keeping a gaming house, and is governed by the rule laid down in State v. Lindley (1860), 14 Ind. 430, and Nace v. State (1889), 117 Ind. 114, 19 N. E. 729, to the effect that the keeping of such a house is a continuous act, and that all the time which a house or place is thus kept, prior to the prosecution, constitutes but one *551indivisible offense, punishable by a single prosecution. Keeping a disorderly house under the old liquor law is an analogous offense, and under that it was held that proof of disorderliness in a single instance was not sufficient to sustain a conviction. Overman v. State (1882), 88 Ind. 6.

¶4The trial court was correct in overruling the motion to require «the state to elect on which particular transaction it would rely for conviction on the third count.

¶5Appellant’s other contentions would apply to a motion' to quash, if they have any applicability at all.

¶6The judgment is affirmed.-

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