State v. Higgins
| Decision Date | 14 June 1881 |
| Citation | 13 R.I. 330 |
| Parties | STATE v. PATRICK HIGGINS.[1] |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
A statute provided that " evidence of the sale or keeping of intoxicating liquors for sale in any building, place, or tenement, shall be primâ facie evidence that the sale or keeping is illegal."
Held, that this statutory provision was constitutional and valid.
State v. Beswick, 13 R.I. 211, affirmed.
A person prosecuted for an act generally criminal may, if licensed to perform it, be required to produce his license in defence whenever there is evidence to show his guilt if he has no license.
EXCEPTIONS to the Court of Common Pleas.
Willard Sayles, Attorney General, for plaintiff.
Charles E. Gorman & Hugh J. Carroll, for defendant.
This is an indictment under Gen. Stat. R.I. cap. 73, §§ 1 and 2, which comes here from the Court of Common Pleas on exceptions. It charges that the defendant " did keep and maintain a certain grog-shop and tippling-shop and building, place, and tenement used for the illegal sale and illegal keeping of intoxicating liquors, and for the habitual resort of intemperate, idle, dissolute, noisy, and disorderly persons." At the trial in the Court of Common Pleas, on a plea of not guilty, the government submitted testimony to show that the defendant kept a shop of the kind described in the indictment, but produced no proof that he was not licensed or authorized to sell intoxicating liquors. The defendant requested the Court to charge the jury that, inasmuch as the State had not produced any such proof, they should not convict the defendant of keeping a grog-shop, tippling-shop, building, place, or tenement used for the illegal sale and keeping of intoxicating liquors; but the Court refused so to charge, and did charge that all sales and keeping were primâ facie illegal, and that the burden was on the defendant to show that he had a license or authority to sell or keep. The defendant excepted.
The government contends that the charge was authorized by Pub. Laws R.I. cap. 830, § 3, of June 9, 1880, which among other things provides that in prosecutions for the keeping of such nuisances " evidence of the sale or keeping of intoxicating liquors for sale in any building, place, or tenement shall be primâ facie evidence that the sale or keeping is illegal." The defendant contends that this provision is unconstitutional, and was therefore no authority for the charge.
The question thus presented is in our opinion essentially the same as one of the questions decided in State v Beswick, 13 R.I. 211. The court decided in that case that the General Assembly has the constitutional power to...
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Slack v. State
...of case, even if it was necessary at common law, by article 452 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In the case of State v. Higgins, 13 R. I. 330, 43 Am. Rep. 26, it is held that the Legislature has power to provide: "It is entirely reasonable, we think, that a person who is prosecuted for a......
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State v. Neary, 77-454-C
...was not unconstitutional and did not effect a deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of the laws. State v. Higgins, 13 R.I. 330, 331-32 (1881). Accord, State v. Sheehan, 28 R.I. 160, 66 A. 66 (1907) (possession of undersized lobsters).8 In passing upon a substantially ......
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State v. Tutalo
...Our own decisions, while not lending unqualified support to the rule we adopt, do so impliedly. State v. Mellor, 13 R.I. 666; State v. Higgins, 13 R.I. 330. The majority view rests on two settled principles. The first is the unquestioned legislative authority in the legitimate exercise of t......
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Dozier v. State
...N. J. Law, 89, 2 Atl. 668; Wheat v. State, 6 Mo. 455; Williams v. State, 35 Ark. 430; People v. Nyce, 34 Hun (N. Y.) 298; State v. Higgins, 13 R. I. 330, 43 Am. Rep. 26; State v. Keggon, 55 N. H. 19; Com. v. Locke, 114 Mass. 288; Abbott's Trial Brief, §§ 739, If the defendant in this case h......