State v. Goss

• Decision Date: 21 June 1887
• Citation: 9 A. 829,59 Vt. 266
• Parties: STATE v. GOSS.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

9 A. 829

59 Vt. 266

STATE

v. GOSS.¹

Supreme Court of Vermont.

June 21, 1887.

Exceptions from Caledonia county.

Complaint for selling, furnishing, and giving away intoxicating liquor. Trial by jury, June term, 1885, Caledonia county court.

Exceptions by respondent. The facts appear in the opinion.

M. Montgomery, State's Atty., for the State.

A complete sale of personal property can only be made by ascertaining the quantity in some way, and by delivery. The statute is merely a police regulation, and the defendant's knowledge or lack of it is not an element of the offense.

L. P. Poland, for respondent.

It was not claimed that the liquor was to be used or disposed of in violation of law. If the defendant had known what the boxes contained, he violated no law. Indeed, it was his legal duty to deliver them, and he would have subjected himself to liability if he had refused. The clear intent and purpose of the law was to prohibit public carriers from bringing and delivering intoxicating liquors to persons to use and dispose of in violation of law, and to leave them bound to their common and legal duty to transport and deliver for all other people. The express agent is not liable unless he has knowledge that the article he delivers is intoxicating liquor. Ignorance of the law is never a defense against a criminal act, but ignorance of any fact that is an essential part of the criminal act is always an excuse.

ROWELL, J. This is a complaint, in one count, for selling, furnishing, and giving away intoxicating liquor contrary to law. The facts are these: In the summer of 1883 one Pearson, who lived at East Barnett, ordered some lager beer from Bellows Falls to be sent to him by express, and it came in a box directed to him, and marked "C. O. D." The respondent was station agent, and also agent of the express company at East Barnett, and as such express agent delivered said box and its contents to Pearson, and received from him the designated price of $1.75 for transmission to the consignor. The respondent had no knowledge of what the box contained; but the state claimed that, from the form and size of the box, and the price-paid, he had reason to suspect that it contained lager beer, and that he could have found out by opening the box. In March, 1884, a box came by express to East Barnett from Manchester, New Hampshire, marked "C. O. D.," and directed to William Lowell, of South Danville, which is seven or eight miles from East Barnett. The respondent, as express agent, delivered this box to one Badger, the driver of a daily stage between the two places, to be carried to Lowell; and Badger then, or in a day or two after, paid the respondent the charges thereon of about $3.50, with money furnished him by Lowell for that purpose, but the respondent did not know whether it was Lowell's or Badger's money. Before Badger started for South Danville that day the box was seized by an officer, and he arrested, and on opening the box, it was found to contain a gallon of alcohol in a jug. There was no evidence that the respondent knew what the box contained, except that the testimony tended to show that there was such a perceptible odor of liquor emitted from it that he had reason to suspect that it contained liquor, and he admitted that he did so suspect.

The respondent claimed, and requested the court to charge, that as he was an express agent, and his only connection with the matter was in that capacity, his acts were not in violation of law unless the persons to whom he delivered the boxes obtained the beer and the alcohol for the purpose of disposing of it contrary to law, and that, if he knew what the boxes contained, it would make no difference; that he could not, in any event, be made liable unless it was found that he did know what they contained; that delivering them to the persons named, and receiving and remitting the money to the consignors, did not constitute a sale by him for which he could be held liable; and that, delivering the box to Badger was only a delivery to another carrier, and not a sale nor a furnishing.

The court ruled that it was immaterial whether the respondent knew what the boxes contained or not, and that, upon the facts proved.—which were not disputed,—the respondent was guilty of two illegal sales, and so instructed the jury, which returned a verdict accordingly.

It is undoubtedly true, as contended, that the respondent did not so become the seller of these packages as to make him civilly liable as such. But this does not settle the question; for one may well be criminally liable in respect of a transaction in which he engages as agent, although he is not civilly liable.

A distinction is attempted to be made between the respondent's relation to the alcohol and his relation to the beer; but none exists, we think. It does not appear that the express company had undertaken to deliver the alcohol beyond the terminus of its own transit at East Barnett, nor that, according to the rules and usages of the business, it was its duty to deliver the package to the...