State v. Intoxicating Liquors

• Decision Date: 08 February 1893
• Citation: 85 Me. 304,27 A. 178
• Parties: STATE v. INTOXICATING LIQUORS.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

27 A. 178

85 Me. 304

STATE

v. INTOXICATING LIQUORS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Feb. 8, 1893.

(Official.)

Exceptions from supreme judicial court, Franklin county.

Libel by the state of Maine for the condemnation of certain intoxicating liquors, which Samuel Farmer claims as owner. Libelant had judgment, and claimant brings exceptions. Exceptions sustained.

F. E. Timberlake, Co. Atty., for the State.

H. L. Whitcomb and J. C. Holman, for claimant.

LIBBEY, J. Two points are raised by the defendant's exceptions:

1. The exclusion of Arthur Merrill as a witness. Laura F. Turner was called by the state, and testified that she occupied a room next to room 10, in the claimant's hotel, in which latter room part of the liquors were found, "and at various times before the seizure had heard Samuel Farmer, in room 10, with different persons, talking about liquors and prices." On cross-examination she was asked by claimant if she could name any persons so heard in room 10, and answered she could. She was then asked to give some names. In answer she gave the name of Arthur Merrill, of Phillips, as one of the persons she had heard in that room.

In his defense the claimant called said Arthur Merrill, and asked him if he was ever in said room 10. This question was objected to by the county attorney on "the ground that the name of Merrill was called out by the claimant himself, from Mrs. Turner, and he could not now contradict her answer." The court sustained the objection, and excluded the evidence. We think the question was competent. The question put to the witness Turner was proper and relevant. It related to the subject-matter of her testimony. It did not call out a collateral and irrelevant fact, and the answer was not conclusive on the claimant Testimony of Merrill that he was never in room 10 might have some tendency to impair the credit of Mrs. Turner.

2. To the instructions of the judge to the jury.

The claimant contended that the state must show that, at the time the complaint and warrant for search were made, he then had the intent that the liquors should be sold in violation of law; that it was not sufficient for the state to show that at some previous time the liquors had been deposited or kept for such sale, if before the search the owner had changed his mind, and at the time of the complaint and search had no intention to sell the liquors. In reference to this contention, the presiding justice instructed the jury as follows:

"Now, the issue is as to whether or not these particular liquors described in this libel, and seized by the officer, and now in his possession, were kept and deposited at that hotel in Phillips with the intent that the same should be sold in violation of law. The state says that they were. Mr. Farmer, the claimant of them, says that they were not.

"You have heard it said to you by the defendant's counsel that the government must prove that they were intended for sale by the owner of them at the precise moment when the officer swore out the complaint. He contends, if I understand him, that, whatever may have been...