State v. Waxman
| Decision Date | 04 June 1919 |
| Citation | 107 A. 150 |
| Parties | STATE v. WAXMAN. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Error to Court of Quarter Sessions, Salem County.
Samuel Waxman was convicted of illegal sales of liquor, and brings error. Reversed and remanded.
Argued November term, 1918, before the Chief Justice and SWAYZE and TRENCHARD, JJ.
Thomas G. Hilllard, of Salem, for plaintiff in error.
Daniel V. Suimnerill, Jr., of Salem, for the State.
The defendant was convicted of illegal sales of liquor. He did not personally make the sales, but the state claimed that they were made by his employes with his assent. The court charged that if the jury believed that the sales were made by either of the men alleged to be employes, This charge was erroneous. It attempted to ingraft upon the criminal law, a theory of liability proper to the law of negligence, but not to the criminal law, where there must be either a criminal intent or such language in the statute defining the crime as shows that the Legislature meant that criminal intent should be unnecessary.
The statute in the present case makes it unlawful to sell or permit to be sold without a license, certain specified liquors. In view of the principle that requires criminal statutes to be strictly construed, we think the permission made unlawful is such permission as amounts to actual assent, and not such permission as involves mere failure to act. The consequences of adopting the latter definition would be absurd; for example, it would make it unlawful for a mere outsider to permit a sale though he had no authority to forbid it. Obviously, a construction must be adopted that would prevent so absurd a result. We can think of no safer construction than to attribute to the word "permit" the meaning of "assent." This would leave it open to a jury to find as a fact under the circumstances of a particular case, that the defendant by willfully closing his eyes, winked at the offense and thereby tacitly assented and made himself guilty of permitting the unlawful sale, within the...
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State v. Flint
...sufficient to authorize a conviction. Just as in Utah, the defendant must knowingly have the liquor in his possession. In State v. Waxman, 93 N.J.L. 27, 107 A. 150, it was "In prosecution for illegal sale of liquors, charge that if defendant knew or had reason to know that his employees wer......
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State v. Weiner
...1 Burdick, Law of Crimes § 179, p. 231; see State v. Pinto, 129 N.J.L. 255, 257, 29 A.2d 180 (Sup.Ct.1942); State v. Waxman, 93 N.J.L. 27, 107 A. 150 (Sup.Ct.1919). 'For it is of the very essence of our deep-rooted notions of criminal liability that guilt be personal and individual * * *' S......
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State v. Brenner
...Enactments of this class are on well-settled principles to be strictly construed against the State. State v. Lash, supra; State v. Waxman, 93 N.J.L. 27, 107 A. 150. Acts not clearly within the prohibited class are excluded. General terms are restrained by the obvious sense and purpose of th......
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...on well-settled principles to be strictly construed against the State. State v. Lash, supra, (16 N.J.L. 380 (Sup.Ct.1838)); State v. Waxman, 93 N.J.L. 27, 107 A. 150. Acts not clearly within the prohibited class are excluded. General terms are restrained by the obvious sense and purpose of ......