Bach v. State

• Decision Date: 30 November 1895
• Parties: BACH v. STATE.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

33 S.W. 210

BACH v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

November 30, 1895.

Appeal from circuit court, Jackson county; Richard H. Powell, Judge.

Adam Bach was convicted of selling liquors in quantities less than one quart, without a license, and appeals. Reversed.

M. M. Stuckey and Joseph W. Phillips, for appellant. E. B. Kinsworthy, Atty. Gen., for the State.

PER CURIAM.

The appellant, Adam Bach, was indicted and convicted in the Jackson circuit court, after trial by the court sitting as a jury, for selling liquor in quantities less than one quart, without a license, and appealed to this court. The only question in the case is as to the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant the conviction, which, as taken from the abstract of the attorney general, was as follows, to wit: "The defendant, Bach, obtained from the Jackson county court a license to sell vinous, spirituous, and malt liquors for the year 1895, in the town of Newport, Jackson county, Ark., a place where it was lawful for said county court to grant a license, and there is no question raised in this case as to the regularity of the said liquor license, or that the defendant had the right to sell liquors in said town during said year in quantities not less than one quart. That within one year of the finding of the indictment herein the said defendant did sell to one Jake Phillips two pints of whisky, the same amounting to one quart, and that the said sale of the said two pints was made to the same person at the price per quart, and at the time of sale the whole quart was delivered to the purchaser; in fact, there was only one sale, one price, one purchaser of two pints, amounting to one quart, delivered at one and the same time. And this was all the evidence." There being no evidence to show that this putting of the quart of whisky into two pint flasks was a subterfuge or mere device resorted to to evade the law forbidding the sale of whisky in quantities less than one quart, without a license, and the circumstances detailed in evidence not being such as to show that an evasion of the law was intended, the court is constrained to regard the circumstance of putting the quart of whisky into two bottles or flasks as a mere manner of delivery of the whole amount, for the sake of convenience, or, at least, might have been the case; and a majority of the court, taking this view of the matter, are of opinion that the circuit court erred in its judgment of conviction. The cases cited by the...