181 S.W.2d 254 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1944
Certifying the law.
W.W. Trousdale was convicted in the Graves quarterly court under a warrant charging him with "the offense of carrying into the local option territory of Graves County intoxicating liquor, to wit, beer of alcoholic content of more than one per cent by volume, for the purpose of personal consumption, thereby violating KRS
The trial judge sustained the demurrer to the warrant on the ground that KRS
The opinions in the Campbell, Smith, and Voils cases are severely criticized in the brief for appellant, and it is insisted that they are not in consonance with more modern views on the subject and that these cases should no longer be followed. In view of our conclusion that the Legislature, in enacting KRS
And section 37 of the Act, as incorporated in the Kentucky Revised Statutes as part (2) of section
Section 23 of the Act, KRS
Throughout the Act the Legislature was dealing with illegal trafficking in alcoholic beverages in local option territory. Standing alone, KRS
The section of the old Act which was construed in Voils v. Commonwealth,
Manifestly the present section is a re-enactment, in substance, of the law in force when the opinion in the *728 Voils case was rendered. As said in appellant's brief, "the main difference seems to be a more economical use of language in the present section with no loss of meaning." In construing the quoted section of the old law, the court in the Voils case said: "We offer no criticism of the statute, nor of the salutary effect it was intended to have in destroying the unlawful business of the bootlegger; but, looking to its language alone, we fail to find any provision that can be invoked to prevent a person, owning and having in his possession by lawful means spirituous, vinous or malt liquors solely for personal use in his own home, from carrying it in his custody by public or private conveyance to his home, or that would prevent the owners of such conveyance from carrying him as a passenger to that home, accompanied by the whisky lawfully in his possession, although the home may happen to be located in a county where the sale of such liquors is prohibited by law. It would be an anomalous situation indeed if we should find it necessary to declare that, although Eastham and his companions were lawfully in possession of the whisky they purchased at Lebanon, and well within their rights under the statute, supra, in having themselves and their whisky carried by appellant to their homes, the latter, notwithstanding the lawfulness of their acts, was properly punished in the court below, because of the assistance he rendered them."
After quoting from the opinions in the Campbell and Smith cases, the court said: "As under the authorities, supra, Eastham and his companions, who purchased the whisky, and by reason of their possession of it and relation to appellant and his automobile as passengers controlled its transportation into the prohibited territory, were not amenable to the punishment prescribed by the statute in question, a fortiori should appellant have been excused for the part he took in the transaction."
It is a generally recognized rule of statutory construction that when a statute has been construed by a court of last resort and the statute is substantially reenacted, the Legislature may be regarded as adopting such construction. City of Mayfield v. Reed,
In Ray v. Spiers,
In Long v. Smith,
It follows from what has been said that the trial judge correctly sustained the demurrer to the warrant regardless of the reason assigned for his ruling. *730
It may be said in passing that the overruling of the Campbell, Smith, and Voils cases, supra, and the construction of KRS
The foregoing is certified as the law.
The Whole Court sitting.