State v. Reily

• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: DIXON, J.
• Citation: State v. Reily, 52 A. 1005, 66 N.J.L. 399 (N.J. 1901)
• Decision Date: 10 June 1901
• Parties: THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, DEFENDANT IN ERROR, v. WILLIAM C. REILY, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR

52 A. 1005

66 N.J.L. 399

66 N.J.L. 401

STATE

v. REILY.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 10, 1901.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to court of quarter sessions, Camden county.

William C. Reily was convicted of selling intoxicating liquors, and brings error. Affirmed.

Argued before DEPUE, C. J., and DIXON, COLLINS, and HENDRICKSON, JJ.

John L. Semple and Beasley & Walker, for plaintiff in error.

Frank T. Lloyd, for the State.

DIXON, J. The defendant pleaded guilty to an indictment charging that on May 1, 1900, and on divers days between that day and the finding of the inquisition, in a certain house in Berlin, in the township of Waterford, and county of Camden, the defendant unlawfully and habitually sold, offered and exposed for sale, and caused and knowingly permitted to be sold, offered and exposed for sale, to certain persons named and others unknown, certain spirituous, vinous, malt, and brewed liquors, the names and particular descriptions of Which were to the grand jury unknown (the same not being compounded and intended to be used as medicine), by less measure than one quart, without a license for that purpose first had and obtained, and that such habitual sales were contrary to law. Except as this indictment mentions brewed liquors and the offering and exposing of liquors for sale, the offense charged to have been habitually committed is that denounced by section 66 of the crimes act (P. L. 1898, p. 812). These excepted allegations can be rejected as surplusage without impairing the substance of the accusation under said section.

Against the Indictment thus confessed, the defendant presents only one objection outside of those which have been considered and overruled in the case of State v. Farnum (at this term) 52 Atl. 956. That objection is that the indictment fails to aver, according to the words of section 74 of the criminal procedure act (P. L. 1898, p. 894), that the liquors sold were intoxicating. As was said in State v. Schmid, 57 N. J. Law, 625, 627, 31 Atl. 280, this section 74 does not attempt to prescribe the language in which the pleader should aver the facts; its purpose was merely to do away with the allegation of keeping a disorderly house, and substitute therefor an allegation of the sale of intoxicating liquors contrary to law, when such sale was the only element of unlawfulness to be proved. It is enough, therefore, if the conclusion of the indictment distinctly shows that the substance of the charge is the habitual...