State v. Kinkead
| Decision Date | 04 January 1889 |
| Citation | 17 A. 855,57 Conn. 173 |
| Parties | STATE v. KINKEAD. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Appeal from superior court, New London county; ANDREWS, Judge.
This prosecution is had under Gen. St. Conn. § 3092, forbidding any person licensed to sell liquors to "allow any minor to loiter on the premises where such liquors are kept for sale."
W. H. Shields and R. M. Douglass, for appellant. J. M. Thayer, State's Atty., and D. G. Perkins, for the State.
This is an information for allowing minors to loiter on the premises where intoxicating liquors were kept for sale under a license. There are three counts in the information, but the state claimed only one conviction and one penalty. The accused was convicted, and he appealed to this court. Two questions were raised on the trial, and are presented here by the reasons of appeal: (1) "Was the place where two of the minors loitered a part of the premises where liquors were kept for sale, within the meaning of the statute? (2) Can the accused be convicted of allowing the other minor to loiter on his premises, he not knowing that he was a minor, but supposing and believing that he was of age? These are the principal questions, and we will consider them in their order.
The first, second, third, sixth, and seventh reasons of appeal relate to the first question. The license was to sell liquor at No. 11 Franklin street. The door under that number opened into a room about 30 feet long by about 20 feet wide. The defendant carried on the ordinary grocery business in the front part of the room and the liquor business in the rear. The two parts were partially separated by a partition extending from the floor to within 18 or 20 inches of the ceiling. On one side was an inclosure about five feet square, used for an office, with an opening into each part of the room. Through these openings there was a passage-way from the front to the rear room. Near the center of the partition there was a swinging door, held in place by a spring, which did not reach the floor nor the top of the partition. Two of the minors, Hall and Lacey, only loitered in the front part of the room where the grocery business was carried on. The counsel for the accused requested the court to charge the jury as follows: "If the jury shall find that the minors Lacey and Hall were in that part of the premises set apart by Kinkead for a grocery store, and that Kinkead did not keep intoxicating liquors in the grocery store for sale, there can be no conviction of the prisoner of the crime charged as to Lacey and Hall loitering there." The court responded as follows: In another part of the charge the court, after giving a definition of the word "premises," left it to the jury to determine as a question of fact whether the part of the room used for the grocery business was a part of the premises where liquors were kept for sale. But it is claimed that it was the duty of the court to construe the statute, and submit its construction to the jury. That might be so, if the statute was ambiguous. But it is not. It is in plain language, and free from uncertainty. Whatever doubt there is arises from the circumstances of the case. That being so, it was for the jury to say whether the place in question was a part of the premises. The course taken with this question was the proper one. State v. Williamson, 42 Conn. 261.
The second question relates to the minor Murphy. He was confessedly in that part of the room where liquors were kept and sold. The accused asked the court to charge "that if the jury find that Kinkead honestly believed Dennis Murphy to be a person over the age of twenty-one years, and had reasonable ground for so believing, and acted on that belief in allowing him to be in his barroom, he should not be...
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