State v. Fanning

Decided July 15, 1866

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1866-07-15

The reason assigned on the motion to quash and in arrest of judgment, that the indictment,- does not charge that the liquor was sold in a less quantitythan one quart, is untrue in fact; the indictment expressly charges the quantity to have been one pint. The indictment is for a violation of § 1, ch. 57, R. C. 1855. p. 688, and sufficiently charges an offence under the same.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1866-07-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently April 1915

9 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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Holmes, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The indictment charged the defendant with “ unlawfully selling a large quantity of intoxicating liquors, to-wit, one pint of whiskey, without then and there having a dram-shop licence, or any other legal authority.” Tins indictment does not even pursue the language of the statute. The gravamen of the offence consists in selling intoxicating liquors in a less *410quantity than one gallon. It may be true that he sold a pint, but as a part of the larger quantity alleged to have been sold. This is a greater laxity in pleading than can be allowed. The exact quantity is immaterial, provided it be a less quantity than one gallon; but this fact should be distinctly averred, as well as the quantity sold.

¶3Judgment reversed.

Judge Wagner concurs; Judge Lovelace absent.