State v. Hyde

• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: CORNELL
• Citation: State v. Hyde, 27 Minn. 153, 6 N.W. 555 (Minn. 1880)
• Decision Date: 13 September 1880
• Parties: STATE OF MINNESOTA v HYDE.

27 Minn. 153

6 N.W. 555

STATE OF MINNESOTAvHYDE.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Filed September 13, 1880.

Appeal from judgment of district court, Martin connty.

Geo. P. Wilson, Att'y Gen., for respondent.

Benj. G. Reynolds and J. L. Higgins, for appellant.

CORNELL, J.

Section 10 of chapter 16 of the General Statutes of 1878 provides for two distinct offences, and prescribes a separate and different penalty for each. The first two sentences of the section relate to one of these offences, and the rest of the section exclusively to the other. As is not unfrequently the case with our statutes, the second sentence contains an inaccuracy of expression which is clearly the result of an inadvertence, for the context makes it sufficiently manifest that reference was had solely to the preceding portions of the section, in the clause therein declaring that “any person violating any of the provisions of this section, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,” etc. The offence charged in the indictment in this instance is one described in the first sentence of the section, which provides that “it shall be unlawful for any person to sell, give, barter, furnish, or dispose of in any manner, directly or indirectly, any spirituous, vinous, malt, or fermented liquors, in any quantity whatever, to any minor person or to any student,” etc. To make out this offence no written notice was required to be shown, such as is mentioned in the concluding sentence of the section. The point “that the indictment fails to allege, and the evidence to show, that the defendant was forbidden to sell to Colton, the minor, or that he was a student,” was not well taken, as neither fact was essential or material.

At the trial, after proving the fact that the defendant was engaged in the business of keeping a saloon, and selling spirituous, vinous, and malt liquors at Fairmount, under a license, from July 17, 1878, to January 17, 1879, the prosecution called as a witness one Austin Belden, who testified that he was in defendant's saloon several times during December, 1878, but was unable to state who was usually behind the bar, and that he was also in there once about the 16th of that month, with J. B. Colton. Thereupon several questions were put to said witness, tending to prove, and the answers to which tended to prove, that the witness Colton and another party, by the name of Belden, were in the saloon on that day, and then and there treated each other to liquor and beer, and paid...