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54 Ind. 412

State v. Jacks

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided November 15, 1876

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1876-11-15

<p>Liquor Law.—Indictment.—Retailing Without License.—An indictment for retailing intoxicating liquor without license must aver some price for which it was sold, but need not aver the quantity thereof sold more specifically than that it was less than a quart.</p>

Relies on Douglass v. Howland · Burke v. State · Hare v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently April 1909

3 state decisions

101876188018901900decided

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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Perkins, J.

¶1Indictment for retailing without license. Indictment quashed. The indictment charges that Thomas Jacks, on the 14th day of November, 1875, at,” etc., “ did then and there, unlawfully, for the purpose of gain, sell intoxicating liquors in a less quantity than a quart at a time, to one James Cornell, he, the said Thomas Jacks, not being then and there licensed to sell intoxicating liquors in a less quantity than a quart at a time.” The objections to the indictment were, that it did not state the quantity nor the price of the liquor sold.

¶2It was held, in Divine v. The State, 4 Ind. 240, and in Hare v. The State, 4 Ind. 241, that a failure to state the price constituted a fatal defect in an indictment like the present. These cases were followed in Segur v. The State, 6 Ind. 451, and in Hubbard v. The State, 11 Ind. 554.

¶3In Divine v. The State, supra, Stuart, J., said: “ The objection we find to the indictment is, that there is no allegation of the price for which the liquor was sold. On motion to quash, this defect is fatal. Every fact essential to be proved, should be alleged. Here the pleader alleges a ‘ sale,’ which is a conclusion from the facts, and leaves the important element of price, a fact essential to support the idea of sale, to be inferred.”

¶4In The State v. Mondy, 24 Ind. 268, a price, at which the liquor was sold, was stated, and it was held, that the kind and exact quantity of the liquor sold need not be stated.

¶5*413In Leary v. The State, 39 Ind. 360, the price was stated. So it was in The State v. Buckner, 52 Ind. 278, and in Burke v. The State, 52 Ind. 522. ~We have been able to find no case in our reports where an indictment for retailing without license, in which a sale was charged, has been held good, where a price, at which the sale was alleged to have been made, was omitted.

¶6~We think, that to constitute a good indictment for selling liquor by retail, without license, it must aver a price at which the liquor was sold, hut need not aver the quantity more particularly than to show that it was less than a quart.

¶7The judgment is affirmed.

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