Butler v. State

• Decision Date: 23 August 1892
• Citation: 15 S.E. 763,89 Ga. 821
• Parties: Butler v. State.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

15 S.E. 763

89 Ga. 821

Butler

v.State.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Aug. 23, 1892.

Intoxicating Liquors—Sale—Constitutionality of Act—Journal Entries.

1. The act of August 11, 1891, which prohibits the sale of spirituous, alcoholic, or malt liquor within a radius of three miles of any church or schoolhouse, is not unconstitutional, as to matter not embraced in any of the provisos, for insufficiency of the title, or for want of uniformity in its operation, on account of discriminating between sales made in the county and those made in incorporated towns or cities, or because of any conflict with the general local option law, the act being a general, not a local, act. Nor is the act unconstitutional because it does or may incidentally operate in one or more counties, by reason of the number and location of the churches and schoolkouses within the same, to prohibit for the time being any sale •whatsoever of the liquors mentioned in the act within the boundaries of such counties, and outside of incorporated towns and cities.

2. It does not affirmatively appear, from the journals or otherwise, that the general assembly was not in legal session at the time the act was passed, or that the act was not read three times, and on three separate days, in each house. The entries on the journals are sufficient to uphold the act as constitutional with respect to the time and mode of passing it.

3. The court did not err in denying a new trial.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from city court of Macon; J. P. Ross, Judge.

T. J. Butler, having been convicted of selling liquor contrary to law, and denied a new trial, brings error. Affirmed.

The following is the official report:

The indictment was for selling liquor within three miles of a church, under the act of August 11, 1891, (Acts 1890-91, p. 132.) The following facts were agreed on: In the month of January. 1892, the county commissioners of Bibb county granted permission to defendant to sell liquor at the place charged in the accusation. He paid his state and county license. The defendant has been since that time engaged in the retail sale of spirituous, alcoholic, and malt liquors at the place charged. By actual measurement over the nearest road from defendant's store to the church the distance is three miles and five one hundredths of a mile. By actual measurement across the country and through a swamp, around which the public road makes a bend, the distance from the barroom to the church is sixteen feet less than three miles, which distance is admitted to be the length of a geometrical straight line from the barroom to the church. The first measurement was made at the instance of defendant shortly after his license was granted. The second measurement across the country was made onthe day preceding the taking out of this accusation. Defendant's store is in the county of Bibb. The church (Stone creek church) named in the accusation is in the county of Twiggs. There is no other church or schoolhouse within three miles of defendant's store, and it is admitted that neither...