Sills v. State

Decided December 15, 1884

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1884-12-15

From the Circuit Court of Covington. Tried before the Hon. H. D. Crayton. “ On the trial of this cause,” as the bill of exceptions states, “issue being joined on the plea of not guilty, the State introduced W. C. Loftin, as a witness, who testified that, within twelve months before the finding of the indictment, and in said county, he met the defendant, who was driving a buggy, selling pills, liniments, and other things, and asked him for some whiskey ; that defendant…

Relies on Powell v. State · Ulmer v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1884-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently May 1908

4 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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

SOMEBYILLE, J.

¶1— The indictment charges, that the defendant “ sold vinous or spirituous liquors, without a license, and contrary to law;” and this was sufficient, under the express provisions of section 4806 of the Code (1876). — Powell v. The State, 69 Ala. 10; Ulmer v. The State, 61 Ala. 208. The demurrer was, therefore, properly overruled.

¶2The evidence had no tendency to prove that the liquor sold by the defendant to the witness, Loftin, was anything else than whiskey, or other spirituous liquor of like taste and effect. There was no evidence that it was a medicine other than mere whiskey. The declarations of the defendant at the time of the sale, characterizing it as such, had no tendency to prove the fact. The charges requested were, for this reason, abstract, because they were unsupported by any evidence. They were, therefore, properly refused.

¶3Judgment affirmed.