Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

for the slightest implication that we express an opinion as to such other issues.

2. This brings us to the contention which we at the outset passed over, which is that the indictment was insufficient to state an offense under the Elkins act, although that act was not repealed. The proposition is, that as the indictment only charged that the concessions on the established rate were unlawfully given, it was insufficient because in order to cause a concession to be a crime under the Elkins act, as it stood before the Hepburn law, such concession must have been "either knowingly or willfully granted. If a criminal intent is necessary to the crime, it must be charged in the indictment." It is undoubted that the first ground of the demurrer filed to the indictment was broad enough to embrace this contention if it had been urged. That it was not urged on the hearing of the demurrer persuasively results from the fact that it was not noticed in the elaborate opinion filed by the court in disposing of the demurrer. It moreover results from the proceedings had at the trial after the jury was sworn. The judge who presided at that trial was the same judge before whom the demurrer was heard. When in stating the objection to the admissibility of any evidence on the part of the Government, the counsel for the accused restated both grounds, a expressed in the demurrer, the only contention which the court understood to be urged was the repeal of the Elkins act, since the court said: "I understand that last ground" (the one referring to the repeal of the Elkins act). "Let us see the first ground." It is clear that the counsel did not then consider that the first ground embraced the proposition now made, since in answer to the question of the court he said: "The first ground is the general ground of the insufficiency of the indictment. The second is the same thing, only more specific." That the court understood this declaration as indicating that the only question raised was the repeal of the Elkins act, beyond controversy appears from the statement then made by the court: "The point you wish to make is that there can be no prosecution

1

208 U.S.

[ocr errors]

Opinion of the Court:

here, no matter what the evidence is, because of the repeal of the Elkins act by the Hepburn act." To which counsel answered: "That is right." True also is it that the general language of the exceptions subsequently taken are also broad enough to embrace the point now made, but consistently with that candor and directness of conduct which we should attribute to counsel, and which we do attribute, we cannot consider that the subsequent exceptions were intended by counsel, without notice to the court, to embrace a contention which had been expressly disclaimed and which could not be in the case consistently with the previous statement of counsel as to the one and sole point which they desired to raise. And this conclusion is moreover rendered necessary by the nature of the admission made, which expressly conceded that "the concessions stated in the several counts respectively in the said indictment were given by the direction and with the consent of the said defendant, the Great Northern Railway Company." And particularly is this so in view of the express declaration made by counsel to the court after his admission as to the facts of the case, viz.: "I understand that they [the admissions] are the facts of the indictment." In addition to this not a syllable in the elaborate opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals refers to the question now urged. On the contrary, that opinion contains affirmative statements by the court concerning concessions made by counsel for both parties in argument which exclude the possibility that the contention we are considering was ever directly urged or even indirectly called to the attention of that court. Finally, in the petition filed for certiorari, counsel, after stating the bringing of the indictment, the demurrer, the admissions and the exceptions made at the trial, summed up and precisely stated all the contentions which arose from the demurrer and the exceptions without a single reference to the point now relied upon, and that point was not referred to or noticed in the brief submitted in support of the petition for certiorari. Certain is it that the proposition now urged, in view of the admission made below, is of a purely

[blocks in formation]

technical character. Because we decline to consider the contention under the circumstances stated, we must not be understood as intimating any opinion whatever upon it. Into that question we have not deemed that we are called upon to enter. Affirmed.

PHILLIPS v. CITY OF MOBILE.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ALABAMA.

No. 113. Argued January 17, 1908.-Decided February 24, 1908.

An ordinance imposing a license on persons selling beer by the barrel is an exercise of the police power of the State, and as such is authorized by the Wilson Act, 26 Stat. 313, notwithstanding such liquors were introduced into the State in original packages.

The police power of the State is very extensive and is frequently exercised where it also results in raising revenue, and in this case an ordinance imposing a license tax on a class of dealers in intoxicating liquor was held to be a police regulation notwithstanding it also produced a revenue. Where a license tax on dealers in a particular article is exacted without reference as to whether the article was manufactured within or without the State, the ordinance imposing it creates no discrimination against manufacturers outside of the State within the meaning of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

146 Alabama, 158, affirmed.

THE plaintiff in error herein seeks to reverse a judgment of the Supreme Court of Alabama which reversed a judgment in his favor given by the City Court of Mobile.

The action was brought in the City Court by the city of Mobile, by a written complaint, wherein the city sought to recover from the plaintiff in error (defendant in that court) the sum of fifteen dollars, the amount of the fine imposed upon him by the recorder for the violation of what is termed the license ordinance of the city, approved March 14, 1904, by failing to obtain and pay for a license under the twenty-eighth subdivision of the second section of that ordinance, relating to the selling of beer in that city. The defendant filed a plea, setting up what he alleged was a defense.

[blocks in formation]

Upon the trial in the City Court the parties agreed upon a statement of facts.

From such statement it appears that the city council, as authorized by the state legislature, had, prior to the complaint in question, adopted an ordinance, section one of which imposed a license tax for the fiscal year beginning March 15, 1904, "on each person, firm, corporation or association doing business or trading or carrying on any business, trade, or profession, by agent or otherwise, within the limits of the city of Mobile, and such licenses are hereby fixed for such business, trade or profession Subsection 28 of 2 fixes the amount, upon the payment of which the license may be granted in such a case as this, as follows:

[ocr errors]

as follows."

"28. Breweries, each person, firm, corporation, dealer, brewer, brewery, agent or handler for a brewery, selling beer by the barrel, half barrel or quarter barrel, this clause is not to include license for wholesale or retail vinous or spirituous liquors, $200.00."

The statement of facts as agreed upon then continues as follows:

"That the defendant herein is an individual who resides in Mobile, Alabama, and that he is engaged in the business of being a retail beer dealer, for which, under the exhibit hereto, he has paid the amount of his license, as required by said ordinance for and during the fiscal year, beginning March 15, 1904, and ending March 14, 1905; and that said payment having been made, a license therefor was duly issued by the proper authorities of the city of Mobile, authorizing the defendant to carry on the business of retail beer dealer during said time; that the defendant, in addition to his other liquor business, carried on under the authority of said paid license under said ordinance, has likewise but at the same place and with the same employés before the institution of this prosecution in the Recorder's Court, and since March 15, 1904, been engaged in the business of buying and selling beer in kegs, but only

[blocks in formation]

under the following circumstances: That the defendant would, by letter or telegram sent from Mobile, Alabama, order from a brewery or breweries owned and conducted by residents and citizens of States other than Alabama, certain quantities of lager beer, which, pursuant to said orders, would be shipped by continuous interstate transportation by said non-residents to the defendant at Mobile, Alabama, in kegs, which kegs were, without other packing, loaded into railroad freight box cars and transported by the railroad companies from said breweries in other States to the defendant at Mobile, Alabama. The said purchases by the defendant were outright, and that the defendant by and through said purchases became the owner of said lager beer, to do with as he pleased; that he paid for it usually after its arrival, but never until a bill of lading for each such shipment so paid for, had been received by the defendant at Mobile; that the packages in which said beer came were invariably kegs of the ordinary, usual and customary commercial sizes, in which the same is packed for sale and shipment, and that in such usual commercial original packages the same was taken from the car upon arrival at Mobile and stored in the storehouse or warehouse of the defendant in the city of Mobile until sold by the defendant; that the defendant made sales of said kegs in quantities of one or more to his various customers in and about the city of Mobile and the vicinity thereof, and that such sales were made in contemplation by defendant of deliveries by the defendant in said kegs as original packages, and that the deliveries were thereafter made by delivery wagons owned and operated by the defendant in the city of Mobile to such customers in such original packages. That from the time of the packing and shipment of said beer at the breweries in other States than Alabama until after sale and delivery thereof by the defendant to his various customers in the city of Mobile and the vicinity thereof, none of said kegs as original packages ever became broken or open, but the deliveries by the defendant to his respective customers of said beer was always in the same, original, usual, commercial pack

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »