State v. Stucker
| Decision Date | 07 June 1882 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA v. STUCKER. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Fremont district court.
The defendant was indicted for keeping and maintaining a place where intoxicating liquors were sold contrary to law. Upon a trial he was found guilty, and he appeals.Wynn & Wynn, for appellant.
Smith McPherson, Atty. Gen., for the State.
The court instructed the jury to the effect that the term “intoxicating liquors” as it is used in the statute, includes all spirituous, alcoholic, and vinous liquors, except beer, and excepting, also, cider and wine manufactured from fruits grown in this state, which two last-named liquors may be lawfully sold by any person; and where it is shown that one accused of unlawful sales has sold wine, the burden is on him to show that such wine was manufactured from fruit grown in this state.
It is contended by counsel for appellant that section 1555 of the Code, upon which the instructions of the court are based, is in contravention of the following provisions of the constitution of the United States, viz.: That part of section 8, art. 2, which provides that congress shall have power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states.” Article 4, sec. 2: “The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several states.” The argument is that this statute is void because it prohibits the sale of wine made from fruits grown outside of this state, and permits the sale of wine made from fruits grown within this state, and thereby discriminates against the products of other states.
The act for the suppression of intemperance, which was passed by the general assembly of this state in 1855, and which in its general features has been in force from that time to the present, was declared to be a valid enactment in the case of Santo v. State, 2 Iowa, 165. It is true that this provision of the law was not involved in that case, but it has been in force as part of the prohibitory liquor laws since the year 1858, and has been enforced and approved in many cases, both civil and criminal, in the courts of this state. After so long a period, and after the statute in question has been so frequently enforced, and its provisions so often applied in the regulation of the conduct of the inhabitants of the state, the familiar rule that a statute will not be held to be void as repugnant to the constitution, either of the state or of the United States, unless its unconstitutionality is so obvious as to admit of no doubt, comes to us in all its force.
The constitutionality of laws regulating and prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors has been so often upheld by the courts of last resort in this country, both state and federal, that we need not stop here to...
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