State v. Randolph

• Decision Date: 31 January 1876
• Citation: 1 Mo.App. 15
• Parties: THE STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. DAVID S. RANDOLPH, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

1 Mo.App. 15

THE STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent,

v.DAVID S. RANDOLPH, Appellant.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Jan. 31, 1876.

1. Under the act of February 7, 1874, for the preservation of game, proof that the defendant, a restaurant keeper, caused game to be served to his customers on a certain day within the prohibited period will support a conviction, notwithstanding the fact that there was proof tending to show that the prairie chickens in question had been shipped from the State of Kansas.

2. A State law which prohibits the selling or keeping in one's possession of certain game within a certain period of the year is valid, even when applied to game imported from another State, and, in this application, it is not such a regulation of commerce as belongs exclusively to Congress.

APPEAL from the St. Louis Court of Criminal Correction.

Affirmed.

Melville Smith, for appellant, cited: State v. Parkard, 26 Mo. 340; State v. Marshall,--Mo.--; State v. Spenlove, Riley (S. C.), 269; Peck v. State, 7 Humph. 78; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; State v. Scott & North, 27 Mo. 473; State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. 232; Potter's Dwar. on Stat. 245, and cases there cited.

M. W. Hogan and J. D. Johnson, for respondent.

BAKEWELL, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

Defendant was convicted on July 23, 1874, in the St. Louis Court of Criminal Correction, of a violation of section 3 of the act of the General Assembly entitled “An act for the preservation of game,” approved February 7, 1874, by having in his possession three prairie chickens in July, 1874.

The language of the act is as follows:

“Section 1. It shall be unlawful, in any place in this State, to catch, kill, injure, or pursue with such intent, any pinnated grouse, commonly called prairie chicken, between the first day of February and the fifteenth day of August.

Section 3. It shall be unlawful for any person to purchase, have in possession, or expose for sale any of the birds or game mentioned in the preceding section 1 of this act, during the season when the catching or injuring the same is prohibited.”

The conviction was upon the 1st count of the complaint, of having in his possession three pinnated grouse, on or about July 8th; and defendant was fined $9, being $3 for each bird.

The evidence is that three prairie chickens were cooked and dressed by the servant of defendant, at a restaurant in St. Louis of which defendant acted as proprietor, by the direction of defendant, during the month of July, 1874; that on July 7, 1874, there were sold and delivered...