Samuels v. Curdy, 225

Decision Date02 March 1925
Docket NumberNo. 225,225
Citation267 U.S. 188,45 S.Ct. 264,69 L.Ed. 568
PartiesSAMUELS v. McCURDY, Sheriff
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Mr. Hooper Alexander, of Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 188-190 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

Sig Samuels, a resident of De Kalb county, Ga., filed his petition in the superior court of that county against its sheriff, J. A. McCurdy, in which he prayed for the specific recovery of certain intoxicating liquors belonging to him which he averred had been seized on search warrant by the defendant. He asked an injunction to prevent their destruction. A rule to show cause issued and a restraining order. A general demurrer to the petition was sustained and the case dismissed. On error to the Supreme Court of the state, the judgment was affirmed. This is a writ of error to that judgment.

The petition averred that Phillips, a deputy sheriff of the defendant, went to Samuels' residence and acting under a search warrant seized and carried away a large quantity of whiskys, wines, beer, cordials and liquors, that he stored this in the jail of the county, that it was the purpose of the defendant to destroy them, without any hearing of the petitioner; that the value of the liquors at the scale of prices current before the prohibition laws was approximately $400, but at the prices paid thereafter if illegally sold, would be very much more; that the greater part of the liquors was bought by the petitioner and kept at his home prior to the year 1907; that the balance thereof was legally purchased by him in the state of Florida and legally shipped to him in interstate commerce prior to the year 1915; that although a citizen of the United States and the state of Georgia, the petitioner was born in Europe where the use of such liquors had been common, that he had been accustomed to their use all his life, that he purchased them lawfully for the use of his family and friends at his own home, and not for any unlawful purpose.

The Session Laws of Georgia for 1907, p. 81, now embodied in section 426 of the Georgia Penal Code, declares that:

'It shall not be lawful for any person within the limits of this state to sell or barter for valuable consideration, either directly or indirectly, or give away to induce trade at any place of business, or keep or furnish at any other * * * places, or manufacture, or keep on hand at their place of business any alcoholic, spirituous, malt, or intoxicating liquors, or intoxicating bitters, or other drinks which, if drunk to excess, will produce intoxication; and any person so offending shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.'

By Act of November 17, 1915 (Laws Ga. Ex. Sess. 1915, p. 77) § 2, it is provided:

'It shall be unlawful for any person * * * to manufacture, sell, offer for sale, * * * keep on hand at a place of business or at or in any social, fraternal or locker club, or otherwise dispose of any of the prohibited liquors and beverages described in section 1 of this act, or any of them, in any quantity; but this inhibition does not include, and nothing in this act shall affect, the social serving of such liquors and beverages in private residences in ordinary social intercourse.'

Section 20 of same act reads as follows:

'Sec. 20. Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no property rights of any kind shall exist in said prohibited liquors and beverages, or in the vessels kept or used for the purpose of violating any provision of this act or any law for the promotion of temperance or for the suppression of the evils of intemperance; nor in any such liquors when received, possessed or stored at any forbidden place or anywhere in a quantity forbidden by law, or when kept, stored or deposited in any place in this state for the purpose of sale or unlawful disposition or unlawful furnishing or distribution; and in all such cases the liquors and beverages, and the vessels and receptacles in which such liquors are contained, and the property herein named, kept or used for the purpose of violating the law as aforesaid, are hereby declared to be contraband and are to be forfeited to the state when seized, and may be ordered and condemned to be destroyed after seizure by order of the court that has acquired jurisdiction over the same, or by order of the judge or court after conviction when such liquors and such property named have been seized for use as evidence.'

By Act of March 28, 1917 (Laws Ga. Ex. Sess. 1917, p. 7), it is declared that:

'It shall be unlawful for any corporation, firm, person or individual to receive from any common carrier, corporation, firm, person or individual, or to have, control or possess, in this state, any of said enumerated liquors or beverages whether intended for personal use or otherwise, save as is hereinafter excepted.'

The provision of 1915 which permitted the social serving of liquors and beverages in private residences and in ordinary social intercourse was expressly repealed by the act of 1917. Under other provisions liquor and wine may be held for medicinal, mechanical and sacramental purposes on special permits. There are not claimed to be any circumstances in this case excepting the liquors here seized from the condemnation of the act of 1917.

Three grounds are urged for reversal: First, the 1917 law under which liquor lawfully acquired can be seized and destroyed is an ex post facto law. Second, the law in punishing the owner for possessing liquor he had lawfully acquired before its enactment, deprives him of his property without due process. Third, it violates the due process requirement by the seizure and destruction of the liquor without giving the possessor his day in court.

First. This law is not an ex post facto law. It does not provide a punishment for a past offense. It does not fix a penalty for the owner for having become possessed of the liquor. The penalty it imposes is for continuing to possess the liquor after the enactment of the law. It is quite the same question as that presented in Chicago & Alton R. Co. v. Tranbarger, 238 U. S. 67, 35 S. Ct. 678, 59 L. Ed. 1204. There a Missouri statute required railroads to construct water outlets across their rights of way. The railroad company had constructed a solid embankment twelve years before the passage of the act. The railroad was penalized for noncompliance with the statute. This court said:

'The argument that in respect to its penalty feature the statute is invalid as an ex post facto law is sufficiently answered by pointing out that plaintiff in error is subjected to a penalty not because of the manner in which it originally constructed its railroad embankment, nor for anything else done or omitted before the passage of the act of 1917, but because after that time it maintained the embankment in a manner prohibited by that act.'

Second. Does the seizure of this liquor and its destruction deprive the plaintiff in error of his property without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment?

In Crane v. Campbell, 245 U. S. 304, 38 S. Ct. 98, 62 L. Ed. 304, Crane was arrested for having in his possession a bottle of whisky for his own use, and not for the purpose of giving away or selling the same to any person. This was under a provision of the statute of Idaho that it should be unlawful for any person to import, ship, sell, transport, deliver, receive or have in his possession any intoxicating liquors. It was held that the law was within the police power of the state. The court said:

'It must now be regarded as settled that, on account of their well-known noxious qualities and the extraordinary evils shown by experience commonly to be consequent upon their use, a state has power absolutely to prohibit manufacture, gift, purchase, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within its borders without violating the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment'—citing Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129, 21 L. Ed. 929; Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25, 33, 24 L. Ed. 989; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 662, 8 S. Ct. 273, 31 L. Ed. 205; Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86, 91, 11 S. Ct. 13, 34 L. Ed. 620; Purity Extract Co. v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192, 201, 33 S. Ct. 44, 57 L. Ed. 184; Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Ry. Co., 242 U. S. 311, 330, 331, 37 S. Ct. 180, 61 L. Ed. 326, L. R. A. 1917B, 1218, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 845.

The court pointed out that as the state had the power to prohibit, it might adopt such measures as were reasonably appropriate or needful to render exercise of that power effective; and that considering the notorious difficulties always attendant upon efforts to suppress traffic in liquors, the court was unable to say that the challenged inhibition of their possession was arbitrary and unreasonable or without proper relation to the legitimate legislative purpose, that the right to hold intoxicating liquor for personal use was not one of those fundamental privileges of a citizen of the United States which no state could abridge, and that a contrary view would be incompatible with the undoubted power to prevent manufacture, gift, sale, purchase or transportation of such articles—the only feasible way of getting them. It did not appear in that case when the liquor seized had been acquired but presumably after the prohibitory act.

In Barbour v. Georgia, 249 U. S. 454, 39 S. Ct. 316, 63 L. Ed. 704, it was held that the Georgia prohibitory law, approved November 18, 1915, but which did not become effective until May 1, 1916, was not invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment when applied to the possession of liquor by one who had acquired it after the approval of the law and before it became effective.

These cases it is said do not apply because the liquor here was lawfully acquired by Samuels before the act of 1917 making it unlawful for one to be possessed of liquor in his residence for use of his family and...

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