State v. Craft

• Court: Missouri Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: David E. Blair
• Citation: State v. Craft, 246 S.W. 930 (Mo. 1922)
• Decision Date: 09 December 1922
• Docket Number: No. 23631.,23631.
• Parties: STATE v. CRAFT.

246 S.W. 930

STATE v. CRAFT.

No. 23631.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

December 9, 1922.

Appeal from Circuit Court, St. Francois County.

John Craft was convicted of selling intoxicating liquor, and he appealed to the Court of Appeals, which transferred the case to the Supreme Court. Reversed and remanded.

B. H. Boyer, of Farmington, for appellant.

Jesse W. Barrett, Atty. Gen., and Henry Davis, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

DAVID E. BLAIR, J.

Convicted under an indictment charging the selling of intoxicating liquor in violation of the Local Option Law (Rev. St. 1919, §§ 6564-6571), in St. Francois county in 1916, defendant was fined and appealed to the St. Louis Court of Appeals. That court transferred the case to this court "because of the construction of the Constitution of Missouri being involved." We are not advised of the reason the case was not so transferred for more than five years after the appeal was granted.

I. The question of the constitutionality of said law was raised in the motion to quash the indictment, wherein it was alleged that the Local Option Law violates section 15, art. 2, of the Missouri Constitution, in that it is retrospective in its effect and operation and because it is not uniform throughout the state. From the very time of the adoption of the Local Option Law, its constitutionality has been assailed from every conceivable angle with all the ingenuity astute counsel could command, and it has been sustained time and time again, starting with State ex rel. Maggard v. Pond, 93 Mo. 606, 6 S. W. 460. The same attack made here has been overruled. See Ex parte Handler, 176 Mo. 383, 75 S. W. 920, and a long line of cases cited and discussed therein. The validity of the local option law, when tested by the Constitution of Missouri, is no longer a debatable question, and, if that had been the only constitutional question raised, the case could not properly have been transferred to this court.

II. But it appears from the motion to quash that appellant raised the question that said law violates paragraph 1, § 8, art. 1, of the United States Constitution and the laws of Congress putting into effect the powers there delegated to Congress. The paragraph referred to reads as follows:

"Sec. 8. Powers of Congress.—The Congress shall have power: To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."

Appellant does not suggest in his brief how said law violates said paragraph of the United States Constitution, or cite a single authority on the point. But since the question has been raised in the motion to quash and the overruling of such motion by the trial court has saved the point, it is our duty to consider it. Clearly, the Local Option Law could not possibly violate the provision of the United States Constitution relied upon and quoted above. Appellant must have had some other provision in mind. The right of the state to enact laws regulating or prohibiting altogether the sale of intoxicating liquors has been fully sustained against varied attacks upon such laws as violative of the Federal Constitution, including section 8 of article 1 and the Fourteenth Amendment. See Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 8 Sup. Ct. 273, 31 L. Ed. 205; Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 9 Sup. Ct. 6, 32 L. Ed. 346. The contention must be overruled. "

III. It appears from the record that defendant testified as a witness and in rebuttal the state was permitted to offer evidence tending...