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70 Ky. 105

Commonwealth v. Ewing

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

Decided June 10, 1870

Court of Appeals of Kentucky · decided 1870-06-10

<p>Defective indictment for selling liquor to any “white person” under the age of twenty-one years. — An indictment under the act of Marcii 3, 1860 (Myers’s Supplement, 517), for selling liquor “to any white person under the age of twenty-one yea/rs,” is defective if it does not allege that the minor was a white person. Demurrer of defendant to the indictment in this case was properly sustained by the circuit court.</p>

Decided 1870-06-10

JUDGE HARDIN

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The principal question to be decided on this appeal is whether the allegations of the indictment were sufficient to constitute the offense denounced by the act of March 2, 1860 (Myers’s Supplement, 517), which declares: “That hereafter *106no person shall sell to any white person under the age of twenty-one years any spirituous or vinous liquors, or the mixture of either, unless by the written consent or request of the father of such minor, if living, or of the mother or guardian of such minor if the father be dead,” etc.

¶3The only apparent defect in the indictment in this case is that it fails to allege that Dunn, the minor to whom the defendant is charged with selling liquors, was a white person. But this fact being an essential constituent of the offense as defined and intended to be punished by the statute, the indictment does not contain a sufficient “ statement of the facts constituting the offense,” as required by section 121 of the Criminal Code; and the court therefore rightly sustained the demurrer of the defendant and dismissed the indictment.

¶4Wherefore the judgment is affirmed.

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