Fowel v. State
Decision Date | 13 January 1955 |
Docket Number | No. 55,55 |
Citation | 110 A.2d 524,206 Md. 101 |
Parties | Redge FOWEL v. STATE of Maryland. |
Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Edward C. Bell, Jr., Hyattsville (Green, Babcock & Bell, Hyattsville, on the brief), for appellant.
James H. Norris, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. (Edward D. E. Rollins, Atty. Gen., W Giles Parker, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Robert T. Barbour, State's Atty., Charles County, La Plata, on the brief), for appellee.
Before BRUNE, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and HAMMOND, JJ.
This is an appeal from a conviction for violating the liquor laws, Code, 1951, Article 2B, Section 118; and Code, 1951, Article 2B, § 93, Chapter 119 of the Acts of 1953.
The facts of the case are in part as follows. The appellant, Redge Fowel, was indicted under two counts, the first charging him on May 16, 1954, with unlawfully placing 'curtains and unlawfully permitting curtains to be placed over windows in a room where alcoholic beverages were sold at the premises in said Charles County known as 'The Lake', so as to prevent persons on the outside from being able to observe the interior of the premises.' The second count charged him on May 15, 1954, with unlawfully failing 'to close at midnight the bar and room where alcoholic beverages are sold in the premises known as 'The Lake'.'
Section 118, supra, provides as follows:
Section 93, supra, as amended, provides:
The testimony shows that on the dates alleged these sections were violated at the Lake Restaurant in Charles County, the licenses for which were issued in the name of John R. Knott, who owned a fifty-one percent interest in the business. Appellant was the lessee and manager of the restaurant and was in charge of it at the time the offenses were committed. Apparently Knott was out of the State at the time of the offenses and at the time of the trial.
At the end of the State's case, the appellant made a motion for a directed verdict on the ground that he was merely a lessee of the premises and not the licensee. This motion was denied. At the end of the whole case a similar motion was made and denied. The trial judge, in his charge to the jury, stated in part that the word 'licensee' in the two sections aforesaid meant not only the licensee but whoever was in charge of the premises at the time the crimes specified in the statutes were committed. Appellant claims that, as he was not the holder of any alcoholic beverage license, the trial judge should have directed a verdict for him.
The State relies on the case of Carroll v. State, 63 Md. 551, 3 A. 29, in which this Court held that where the agent violates the law in dispensing liquors to purchasers, the principal is chargeable with the agent's violation. However, that case does not hold the converse, that the agent is criminally liable for violations chargeable only to the licensee. The State further contends that the words 'any person' used in the last sentences of Sections 118 and 93, supra, make the appellant liable for the violations here.
Code, 1951, Article 2B, Section 2(j), provides under 'Definitions': "License holder' or 'Licensee' means the holder of any license, issued under the provisions of this Article or of any other law of this State, and includes a County Liquor Control Board and a county dispensary.' It was said in Maguire v. State, 192 Md. 615, 623, 65 A.2d 299, 302: 'Adherence to the meaning of words does not require or permit isolation of words from their context.' See also Crouse v. State, 130 Md. 364, 371, 100 A. 361; Kolb v. Burkhardt, 148 Md. 539, 129 A. 670; Pittman v. Housing Authority, 180 Md. 457, 463, 464, 25 A.2d 466; Lohr v. Upper Potomac River Commission, 180 Md. 584, 26 A.2d 547; Smith v. Higinbothom, 187 Md. 115, 131, 48 A.2d 754; Crider v. Cullen, 191 Md. 723, 728, 63 A.2d 618.
Where the statutory language is plain and free from ambiguity and so expresses a definite and sensible meaning, that meaning is conclusively presumed to be the meaning which the Legislature intended. The courts are not at liberty to surmise the legislative intention to be contrary to the words and letters of the statute, or to insert or delete words with a view of making the statute express an intention which is different from its plain meaning. Mitchell v. State, 115 Md. 360, 365, 80 A. 1020; Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Deegan, 163 Md. 234, 238, 161 A. 282; Tull v. Fitzgerald, 167 Md. 429, 433, 175 A. 216; Roach v. Jurchak, 182 Md. 646, 652, 35 A.2d 817. The case of Wimpling v. State, 171 Md. 362, 370, 189 A. 248, 252, was one in which the appellant was indicted for the crime of statutory arson. The Court there said: It was said in Cearfoss v. State, 42 Md. 403, 407: ...
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