State v. Watts

• Decision Date: 28 April 1903
• Citation: 101 Mo. App. 658,74 S.W. 377
• Parties: STATE v. WATTS.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

74 S.W. 377

101 Mo. App. 658.

STATE v. WATTS.

Court of Appeals at St. Louis, Missouri.

April 28, 1903.

INTOXICATING LIQUOR—ILLEGAL SALE—PROSECUTION —INDICTMENT—SUFFICIENCY.

1. Rev. St. 1899, § 3016, defines intoxicating liquors to mean fermented or spirituous liquors, or any composition of which fermented or spirituous liquors is a part. Held, that where an indictment alleged an illegal sale of "spirituous liquors, to wit, one pint of beer," and the proof showed sale of a pint of beer, the phrase "spirituous liquors" should be treated as surplusage, and hence there was no variance.

Appeal from Criminal Court, Greene County; J. J. Gideon, Judge.

D. S. Watts was convicted of making an illegal sale of liquor, and he appeals. Affirmed.

W. G. Robertson and J. W. Robertson, for appellant. Roscoe Patterson, for the State.

BLAND, P. J.

The indictment (omitting caption) is as follows: "The grand jurors of the state of Missouri, impaneled, sworn, and charged to inquire, within and for the body of Greene county, upon their oath present and charge that D. S. Watts, late of the county and state aforesaid, on the twenty-eighth day of November, 1901, at the county of Greene and state of Missouri, being then and there a druggist and the proprietor of a drug store in the town of Ash Grove, in said county and state, did then and there unlawfully sell certain spirituous liquors, to wit, one pint of beer, to one George Likens, without first having appeared before the county court clerk of said county and taking and subscribing an oath not to mix or adulterate with any substance whatever the liquor by him offered for sale, and without and before giving bond in the sum of five hundred dollars, with good and sufficient security, as required by law, for the payment of all costs arising from prosecutions for violations of the provisions of chapter 15, art. 8, of the Revised Statutes of Missouri of 1899, in relation to adulteration and sale of intoxicating liquor, contrary to the form of the statutes in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state." Proof was made by the state that defendant had a merchant's license, and that he was the proprietor of a drug store, and kept a stock of drugs and medicines on hand for sale at his place of business in Greene county, Mo.; that within one year next before the filing of the indictment he sold to George Likens one bottle of common beer; that he had not taken the oath or filed the bond required by the statute not to adulterate the liquors in which he dealt. On this...