State v. Clifton

• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland
• Citation: 10 A.2d 703,177 Md. 572
• Docket Number: 20.
• Parties: STATE v. CLIFTON.
• Decision Date: 25 January 1940

10 A.2d 703

177 Md. 572

STATE
v.
CLIFTON.

No. 20.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 25, 1940

Appeal from Circuit Court, Dorchester County; James M. Crockett and T. Sangston Insley, Judges.

Proceeding between the State of Maryland and Emerson Clifton, wherein Emerson Clifton was indicted on a charge of selling an alcoholic beverage without a license in violation of the State Alcoholic Beverages Act, Code Pub.Gen.Laws Supp.1935, art. 2B, § 2, and § 2, as added by Acts 1939, c. 775. From an order quashing the indictment, the State appeals.

Reversed and remanded. [10 A.2d 704]

Robert E. Clapp, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. (William C. Walsh, Atty. Gen., and Calvin Harrington, Jr., State's Atty., of Cambridge, on the brief), for appellant.

James A. McAllister, of Cambridge (J. Gorman Hill, of Cambridge, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and OFFUTT, SLOAN, MITCHELL, JOHNSON, and DELAPLAINE, JJ.

[177 Md. 574] DELAPLAINE, Judge.

Emerson Clifton, the appellee, was indicted on April 25, 1939, and arrested on the charge of selling an alcoholic beverage in Dorchester County without a license in violation of the State Alcoholic Beverages Act. Acts of 1933, Extra Sess., ch. 2; Code Supp.1935, art. 2B, sec. 2.

The statute has been amended by an Act of the Legislature, which took effect on June 1. Acts of 1939, ch. 775. The act repealed art. 2B, sec. 2, and enacted another section in its place; but it did not change the penalty for violations thereof: a fine of not more than $1,000 or imprisonment for not more than two years, or both fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the Court.

On November 1 the appellee filed a motion to quash the indictment on the theory that the statute under which the indictment had been found was repealed. The Court granted the motion, and from the order quashing the indictment an appeal was taken by the State.

It is a general rule of the common law that after a statute creating a crime has been repealed no punishment can be imposed for any violation of it committed while it was in force. Keller v. State, 12 Md. 322, 71 Am.Dec. 596; Smith v. State, 45 Md. 49; State v. Gambrill, 115 Md. 506, 81 A. 10. But it is also a fundamental principle that the law does not favor repeals by implication. No Court should ever adjudge that a repeal has occurred except when it is inevitable or the language of the act shows plainly that the Legislature intended it. Such a legislative intent is never presumed. If there is any question whether a repeal was intended, the statute is strictly construed. So, after the Legislature had passed an act prescribing for the first time in Maryland a statutory penalty for the common-law misdemeanor of keeping a disorderly house, this Court held that the intention of the Legislature was not to release from punishment those who had already been indicted, but to retain the...