State v. Ryan

• Decision Date: 16 March 1900
• Citation: 46 A. 49,70 N.H. 196
• Parties: STATE v. RYAN.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

46 A. 49

70 N.H. 196

STATE

v. RYAN.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Hillsboro.

March 16, 1900.

Indictment for furnishing oleomargarine in the place of butter to a guest of the defendant's hotel, in violation of section 3, c. 115, Laws 1895, enacting that it shall be unlawful for any person to furnish, or cause to be furnished, in any hotel, etc., to any guest or patron, oleomargarine, butterine, or any similar substance, without first notifying such guest or patron that the substance so furnished is not butter. Trial by jury, and verdict for the state. The defendant excepted to the refusal of the court to instruct the jury that the state must prove that he knowingly and intentionally furnished oleomargarine instead of butter, and also to the denial of his request for an instruction that, in order to warrant his conviction, the jury "must find that the defendant knew, or had reason to know, by the exercise of due diligence, that the substance so furnished on his hotel table was not butter."

James P. Tuttle, for the State. Doyle & Lucier and Wason & Jackson, for defendant.

BLODGETT, C. J.The instructions requested by the defendant were properly denied. It is true that, "in the earlier history of the common law, only such acts were deemed criminal as had in them the vicious element of an unlawful intent, indicating a deviation from moral rectitude; but this quality has ceased to be essential, and now acts unobjectionable in a moral view, except so far as being prohibited by law makes them so, constitute a considerable portion of the Criminal Code. In such statutes the act is expressly prohibited, without reference to the intent or purpose of the party committing it, and is usually of the class in which the person committing it is...