Palazini v. United States
| Decision Date | 26 October 1926 |
| Docket Number | No. 2021.,2021. |
| Citation | 14 F.2d 886 |
| Parties | PALAZINI v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
William H. Lewis, of Boston, Mass., and John R. Higgins, of Woonsocket, R. I., for plaintiff in error.
Joseph E. Fitzpatrick, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Providence, R. I. (John S. Murdock, U. S. Atty., of Providence, R. I., on the brief), for for the United States.
Before BINGHAM, JOHNSON, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
On February 8, 1926, a criminal information was filed in the District Court for Rhode Island against Peter Palazini, charging him in the first count with having, on the 16th of January, 1926, the unlawful possession of certain property designed for the manufacture of intoxicating liquor, to wit, two stills, one with a capacity of 250 gallons and the other of 150 gallons, two 500-gallon mixing tanks, 120 5-gallon empty cans, 3 50-gallon barrels of No. 6 specially denatured alcohol, 16 empty 50-gallon barrels, 2 50-gallon barrels of wood alcohol, 1 hand pump, 1 garden hose, 4 funnels, 1 5-gallon glass container of acid, and 1 10-gallon empty container; in the second count with the unlawful manufacture of certain intoxicating liquor, to wit, 11½ cases of whisky, naming the brands, and 86 5-gallon cans of alcohol; and in the third count with the unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor, to wit, 11½ cases of whisky, described as in the second count, and 86 5-gallon cans of alcohol, as there described.
On April 15, 1926, he was found guilty on all the counts, and sentenced to pay a fine of $500 on the first count, to serve 6 months in jail on the second, and to pay a fine of $500 on the third count.
Seven errors are assigned, but the first two are waived. The remaining ones are that the court erred (1) in permitting the government's chemist to testify as to the poisonous ingredients of the seized liquor, after the defendant had admitted their alcoholic content; (2) in refusing to direct a verdict for the defendant for insufficiency of evidence, and because the manufacturing charge in the second count was not proven, within the meaning of that word as employed in the National Prohibition Act (Comp. St. § 10138¼ et seq.); and (3) in imposing sentence on each of the counts.
The first assignment of error is without merit. The respondent could not deprive the government of proving its case by competent evidence, however telling it might be against him. He was charged, not only with manufacturing and possessing intoxicating liquor fit for beverage purposes, but with possessing utensils and liquids designed for the manufacture of such liquors. It was therefore competent for the government, under the latter charge, to present evidence of the nature and composition of the liquids, and materials seized, for the purpose of showing whether they were designed for use in the manufacture of such liquor. Then again much of the alcohol seized represented liquor in different stages of manufacture, some of which, the evidence disclosed, had reached a stage where it was fit for beverage purposes, some that had not reached that stage, and some that never could be made fit for...
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