Holt v. State
| Decision Date | 04 May 1939 |
| Docket Number | 8 Div. 614. |
| Citation | 238 Ala. 2,193 So. 89 |
| Parties | HOLT v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Question Certified by Court of Appeals.
Burdette alias J. B., Holt was convicted of violating the section of the Alabama Beverage Control Act prohibiting possession of counterfeit state revenue stamps, and he appealed to the Court of Appeals, which certified to the Supreme Court the question whether such section is in effect and operative in a dry county.
Question answered in the affirmative.
Opinion conformed to by Court of Appeals, 193 So. 98.
The question here under consideration is whether section 47 of the Alabama Beverage Control Act of February 2, 1937, page 40 (at page 80) is effective in a county where a majority of the electors voting in said election voted "no" on the question of whether the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages shall be legal in that county. See section 51 of the Act, p. 81.
Section 47, supra, is as follows: "Counterfeit Stamps, Crowns or Lids:--That whoever manufactures, buys, sells, offers for sale, or has in his or its possession any reproduction or counterfeit of the Alabama Revenue Stamps, Crowns or Lids provided for in this Act, or stamps, crowns or lids used to identify articles sold and/or distributed by State Liquor Stores, is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than a year and a day, nor more than ten (10) years, and in addition, may be fined not less than Two Thousand ($2,000.00) Dollars, nor more than Ten Thousand ($10,000.00) Dollars."
We have heretofore held that the Act is not effective in a "dry" county, so as to authorize the possession of such liquor in that county by one who purchased it in a "wet" county under authority of the Act. Williams v. State, 28 Ala.App. 73, 179 So. 915, certiorari denied 235 Ala. 520, 179 So. 920. That case gave emphasis to that feature of section 51, supra, which provided that "this Act shall not go into effect in such [so called dry] County, and all laws prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors or beverages now in force and effect in Alabama shall remain in full force and effect in every such County." And in the same section as to dry counties, "the Statutes of Alabama prohibiting the manufacture, sale or distribution of Alcoholic Beverages shall remain in full force and effect."
Section 47, supra, was enacted to prevent evasions of tax features of the law, and if it does not apply in a dry county it would lose its value to a large extent and not accomplish the evident intent of the Legislature.
There are other features of the Act which have application to dry counties, notably section 18, p. 56, which provides for licenses to be issued for the sale in certain kinds of railroad cars for consumption while en route on the railroad. There may be others which we will not undertake to find.
The Act should not be controlled by any certain isolated extracts from it, but rather by a study of the animating current which permeates it.
The prohibition laws of Alabama in existence before the Alabama Beverage Control Act was enacted were complete in every detail. Many features existed merely to prevent evasions. An indictment in broad language was held to be sufficient and to embrace any device or substitute. Section 4644, Code; Noltey v. State, 225 Ala. 584, 144 So. 457. They are set out in Chapter 167, Code, consisting of sixteen articles--sections 4615 to 4800, and those enacted subsequent to the Code of 1923. Their purpose is declared to be to suppress the evils of intemperance. They create many offenses both felonies and misdemeanors. See Slater v. State, 230 Ala. 320, 162 So. 130.
When the Alabama Beverage Control Act, section 51, provided that it shall not go into effect in a dry county, and that all laws prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors shall remain in force in them, we think it meant, as stated by the Court of Appeals in the Williams case, supra, that the said Act should not be there effective to the extent that it conflicts with existing laws which suppress the evils of intemperance and prohibit evasions and subterfuges and which provide for crimes and penalties and prescribe remedies, including the entire body of such laws, except as may be otherwise apparent in it. This does not prevent the application in dry counties of such features as were evidently intended to apply there.
We are clear to the conclusion that section 47, supra, is of the latter class and has effect in dry counties, as a proper interpretation of the language of section 51, supra.
Holt was indicted, tried and convicted, in the Circuit Court of Lauderdale County, of the offense denounced by section 47 of the "Alabama Beverage Control Act". Acts 1936-37, page 80.
Lauderdale, as we judicially know, is a dry county within the meaning of said Beverage Control Act, and it is stated in the query submitted by the Court of Appeals that said offense, if committed at all, was committed in said county.
"Query: Is said section of said act in effect and operative in said dry county?"
On this question the Judges of said Court of Appeals are not in agreement, and their disagreement arises out of their interpretation of the opinion of that court in Williams v. State, 28 Ala.App. 73, 179 So. 915, 919, and more especially, the effect of § 51 of said act which provides: "In every County where a majority of the electors voting in said election vote 'Yes', this Act, and all of its provisions, shall be immediately put into operation in such County, but in every County where a majority of the electors voting in said election vote 'No', this Act shall not go into effect in such County, and all laws prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors or beverages now in force and effect in Alabama shall remain in full force and effect in every such County." [ Italics supplied.]
The opinion in the Williams case observed:
This interpretation gives too much emphasis to the provisions of said § 51, that "Where a majority of the electors voting in said election vote 'No', this Act shall not go into effect in such County," and ignores the limitation placed on that clause immediately following, to wit: "and all laws prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors or beverages now in full force and effect in Alabama shall remain in full force and effect in every such County." [ [Italics supplied.]
The legislative intent expressed, though in awkward phraseology, being that said act in so far as it authorizes the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors and beverages should not go into effect in such counties. This thought is given emphasis by next to the last paragraph in said Section 51, this paragraph reads:
"In all dry Counties, as defined in this Section, the Statutes of Alabama prohibiting the manufacture, sale or distribution of Alcoholic Beverages shall remain in full force and effect, and any person, firm, or corporation convicted of violating any of the provisions of the present statutes of Alabama regulating or defining the illegal manufacture, sale or distribution of alcoholic beverages shall be punished as now provided by such laws." [ Italics supplied.]
These are the laws "specially provided for" in § 61 embodying the repealing clause.
The Beverage Control Act was passed and intended by the Legislature to operate as a general law, applicable to every County of the State, setting up a county option system, to operate harmoniously with the existing laws, not repealed by it, relating to the troublesome and vexatious subject of the traffic in alcoholic liquors and beverages, and in regulation of the traffic therein under the police power of the State. State ex rel. Wilkinson v. Murphy, Ala. Sup., 186 So. 487.
To construe said act as a whole as operating "only" in wet counties, would destroy its major purpose--county option--and render it violative of §§ 106 and 110 of the Constitution.
Said "Alcoholic Beverage Control Act," to carry out the legislative intent, must be construed, not as a separate antagonistic system at war with the existing statutes relating to the liquor traffic, but as in pari materia with said existing statutes, and together constituting a harmonious system of law governing that subject. American Standard Life Ins. Co. v. State, 226 Ala. 383, 147 So. 168; 18 Alabama Digest, Statutes, page 130, + 225.
This is evidenced by § 61 of said Beverage Control Act which provides that:
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