Liquor Transportation Cases

• Decision Date: 09 August 1918
• Citation: 205 S.W. 423
• Parties: LIQUOR TRANSPORTATION CASES. KIZER v. STATE. HALL v. SAME.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

205 S.W. 423

LIQUOR TRANSPORTATION CASES.

KIZER v. STATE.

HALL v. SAME.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

August 9, 1918.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Carroll County; Thos. E. Harwood, Judge.

Appeal from Criminal Court, Tipton County; S. E. Stephenson, Judge.

Harrison Kizer and Arthur Hall were separately convicted of unlawfully transporting intoxicating liquor, and they appeal. Conviction affirmed in each case.

P. W. Maddox, of Huntingdon, for plaintiff in error Kizer. John W. Tipton, for plaintiff in error Hall. W. H. Swiggart, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

WILLIAMS, J.

A number of appeals to this court, at the present term, involve attacks upon the constitutionality of Acts 1917, c. 12, and the proper construction of the act if held to be constitutional. Two of these raise questions which make necessary a somewhat comprehensive survey of the act.

I. Contentions common to the causes:

The act, so far as pertinent to the determination of the issues, is as follows:

"An act prohibiting the receipt of intoxicating liquors from a common or other carrier, prohibiting the possession of such liquors hereafter received from a common carrier, or other carrier, and prohibiting the shipment and personal transportation of such liquors into this state, or between points within this state, whether intended for personal use or otherwise.

"Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, that it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to receive, directly or indirectly, intoxicating liquors including wine, ale and beer, from a common, or other carrier, in this state, whether intended for personal use, or otherwise, and whether interstate or intrastate shipments or transportation.

"Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, that it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to possess intoxicating liquors, including wine, ale and beer, hereafter received, directly or indirectly from a common or other carrier in this state, whether intended for personal use or otherwise, and whether interstate or intrastate shipments or transportation.

"Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, that it shall be unlawful for any express company, railroad company, or any common carrier or person to ship or transport into this state or from one place to another within this state, intoxicating liquors, including wine, ale and beer, for any person, firm or corporation, whether in original packages or otherwise and whether intended for personal use or otherwise.

"Sec. 4. Be it further enacted that it shall be unlawful for any person to personally transport into this state or from one point to another within this state, even when intended for personal use, intoxicating liquors, including wine, ale and beer, in any quantity whatever."

Subsequent sections deal with exceptions, such as legality of deliveries to any priest or minister of wine for sacramental purposes, etc.

(a) Is the act violative of article 2, § 17, of the Constitution of 1870, which provides that no bill shall become a law which embraces more than one subject, that subject to be expressed in the title?

The well-settled rule is that this provision of the Constitution should be construed liberally, otherwise it would operate to embarrass legislation without advancing the beneficial purposes intended, which were to prevent combinations of incongruous subjects in one bill, with the object of drawing to the support of the whole bill members who might wish to support but a part (Railroad v. Crider, 91 Tenn. 489, 19 S. W. 618), and to prevent surprise or fraud in legislation, by having matter of one nature embraced in a bill whose title expressed another (Railroad v. Byrne, 119 Tenn. 287, 304, 104 S. W. 460).

The rule of construction that every intendment is in favor of the constitutionality of a statute, and that every doubt must be solved in its favor, is applicable in the interpretation of titles. Railroad v. Byrne, supra.

What is the import of the words "that subject expressed" in this constitutional provision? Must the subject be set forth in express words of unity, or is it sufficient if the singleness of the object or subject may be gathered from the language of the title?

Cooley, in Constitutional Limitations (173), says that the general purpose of the constitutional provision is accomplished when a law has but one general object, which is "fairly indicated" by its title, and our cases have cited this statement with approval.

"Whatever is of sufficient import to direct the mind to the subjects of proposed legislation meets the object of the Constitution." Truss v. State, 13 Lea (81 Tenn.) 213; Railroad v. Byrne, supra.

"Subject" is not synonymous with "provision," and, where different provisions of the title and statute refer directly to the single subject and have a connection with and are not foreign to that subject and are not unrelated to one another, there is no violation of the constitutional provision. Plurality of the title is not an objection when the several plural provisions deal with, and by necessary construction are but, constituent parts of one subject. That construction may be resorted to to determine the singleness of the object or subject is demonstrable from our decisions.

In State v. Brown, 103 Tenn. 449, 53 S. W. 727, it appeared that the title and the act under test purported to raise the age of consent to 12 years, and to prescribe punishment in the penitentiary for persons having carnal knowledge of females over 12 and under 16 years of age; and the court held, on construction:

"In reality, the subject is single, and the two purposes indicated relate to different parts of that one subject, which is the prevention and punishment of carnal connection with young females. This subject, though not formulated in the language we have employed, is clearly expressed in the title when reduced to its shortest meaning and read in connection with the law amended, and such a title, though sufficiently broad in its scope to include two or more different grades or classes of crimes, is nevertheless single, and expresses but one subject. * * * Nor does it militate against the validity of the statute to say that it treats different offenses and prescribes different punishments for them."

For other cases illustrating the rule, see State ex rel. Morrell v. Fickle, 3 Lea (71 Tenn.) 79; State v. McMinnville, 106 Tenn. 384, 61 S. W. 785; Samuelson v. State, 116 Tenn. 470, 95 S. W. 1012, 115 Am. St. Rep. 805; State v. Cumberland Club, 136 Tenn. 84, 94, 188 S. W. 583.

In Montclair v. Ramsdell, 107 U. S. 147, 2 Sup. Ct. 391, 27 L. Ed. 431, it was said:

"It is not intended to prohibit the uniting in one bill of any number of provisions having one general object fairly indicated by its title. The unity of the object must be sought in the end which the legislative act proposes to accomplish."

The unity of the subject is to be looked for in the ultimate object of the statute; it cannot with reason be held that each step towards the accomplishment of an end or object should be embodied in a separate act, and so long as the steps are of the same general nature and legitimately parts of one system, end, or object, the act is constitutional. School Dist. v. Hall, 113 U. S. 135, 5 Sup. Ct. 371, 28 L. Ed. 955.

Coming to a consideration of the act before us: We think it manifest that the statute was passed in the light of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of James Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland R. Co., 242 U. S. 311, 37 Sup. Ct. 180, 61 L. Ed. 326, L. R. A. 1917B, 1218, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 845, upholding the effectiveness of the statute of West Virginia as supplemented by the act of Congress known as the Webb-Kenyon Law. That opinion was handed down on January 8, 1917, and this act was passed February 1, 1917. The object of the act, several features of which were formulated after the West Virginia act as a model, was to make more effective prohibition in this state, so far as might be as was disclosed by the opinion in the James Clark Distilling Co. Case. That opinion removed previous doubts as to the reach and effect of the Webb-Kenyon Law (Act March 1, 1913, c. 90, 37 Stat. 699 [U. S. Comp. St. 1916, § 8739]), under the national Constitution.

We are of opinion, therefore, that the real object and subject of the act in question may, by construction, be stated to be: An act to make more effective the prohibition laws of this state. The several steps or provisions of the act relate directly to that subject, and have relation one to the other as parts of a system of regulation of the movement, delivery, and possession of intoxicating liquors. The act is therefore not to be denounced as unconstitutional on the ground above stated.

(b) The Supreme Court of the United States, in the Clark Distilling Co. Case, distinctly held that a state may, consistently with the due process clause of the national Constitution, Amendment 14, forbid all shipments of intoxicating liquors, whether intended for personal use or otherwise; and in the later case of Crane v. Campbell, 245 U. S. 304, 38 Sup. Ct. 98, 62 L. Ed. 304 (decided December 10, 1917), that court upheld the validity of a state statute which manifested a further reach of power than is here involved, saying:

"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 guaranty of the fourteenth amendment. (Citing cases.)

"As the state has the power above indicated to prohibit, it may adopt such measures as are reasonably appropriate or needful to render exercise of that power effective. (Citing cases.) And, considering the notorious difficulties always attendant upon efforts to...