McAllister v. State

• Decision Date: 19 June 1890
• Citation: 20 A. 143,72 Md. 390
• Parties: MCALLISTER v. STATE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

20 A. 143

72 Md. 390

MCALLISTER v. STATE.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 19, 1890

Error to criminal court of Baltimore city.

Argued before ALVEY, C.J., and ROBINSON, BRYAN, FOWLER, MCSHERRY and BRISCOE, JJ.

Ed. C. Eichelberger and Peter J. Campbell for appellant.

Atty. Gen. White and Charles G. Kerr, for appellee.

BRISCOE J.

This appeal turns upon the constitutionality of the 90th section of article 27 of the Code of Public General Laws. The traverser was indicted in the criminal court of Baltimore city on the 28th day of February, 1890, under sections 88, 89, and 90 of article 27 of the Code, (Acts 1888, c. 312,) commonly known as the "Oleomargarine Law," and entitled an "Act to prevent deception in the sale or use of butter, etc., and to preserve the public health." The indictment contained three counts,--the first charging the traverser with selling as an article of food, an article manufactured out of an oleaginous substance designed to take the place of butter; second, with unlawfully offering for sale as an article of food an article in imitation and semblance of natural butter; and the third with having in possession, with intent to sell, a certain compound which was coated or colored with annotto or other coloring matter, made, in whole or in part, from animal fat or vegetable oils, not produced from unadulterated milk or cream, whereby the said product, etc., did resemble butter, the product of the dairy. The traverser demurred to the third count, which was overruled, and upon the plea of not guilty was acquitted by a jury upon the first and second counts, and found guilty on the third count. The traverser filed a petition for writ of error, assigning for causes of error, that sections 88, 89, 90, and 91 of article 27 of the Code of Public General Laws, entitled "Fraud, Butter, Oleomargarine," are unconstitutional and void; that the different sections of said act are in conflict and repugnant to each other; that the different parts of the ninetieth section, under which the traverser was convicted, are in conflict; and because the third count of the indictment does not charge any offense known to the law. It is only necessary in disposing of the various objections urged by the appellant to this act to state that this court, in the case of Pierce v. State, overruled like objections to the constitutionality of the act of 1884, c. 243, which was a similar law. In that case the court held that there was no force in the...