146 Ga. 547 | Ga. | 1917
Lead Opinion
(After stating the foregoing facts.) It is unnecessary to take up each of the four cases stated above and deal with them separately. Most of the questions raised for adjudication by these bills of exceptions are common to all of the cases, and a question raised in one or more of the bills of exceptions which is not common to the others will be dealt with separately. Before deciding the point raised in one or more of the bills of exceptions, that the petitioner had not violated the provisions of the act approved November 17, 1915, which relates to intoxicating liquors, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, keeping, etc. (Georgia Laws, Extraordinary Session 1915, p. 77), nor the provisions of the act approved November 18, 1915, relating to intoxicating liquors, prohibiting the delivery, reception, keeping, etc. (Georgia Law's, Extraordinary Session, p. 90), we will consider and dispose of the contentions that these two statutes (which will be hereinafter referred to as the act of November 17 and the act of November 18, 1915, respectively, and as the prohibitory laws or statutes when the two acts are considered and referred to collectively) are unconstitutional and void, because in material particulars they are offensive to indicated portions of the State and Federal constitutions.
Whether the prohibitory acts of 1915 are invalid because they offend the provisions' of the constitution of the United States, or
It is insisted, that section 20 of the act of November 17, 1915, is violative of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, which provides that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” And it is also contended that the said acts of 1915, if they seek to make unlawful the keeping of alcoholic beverages for personal use and social purposes by a citizen in his private residence, are violative of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, in that they deprive him of his property without due process of law, no provision being made in said acts requiring notice to him and due opportunity to be heard as to what purpose said property is kept and why it should not be condemned. It may be that the provision in these laws which prevents the keeping for personal and domestic use and social purposes at a citizen’s private residence is drastic in its effects and constitutes a new step in legislation aimed at the liquor traffic and the use of alcoholic liquors' as a beverage. But we can not agree with' the contentions of the plaintiffs that the acts are, on the grounds just stated, an infringement of any of the privileges guaranteed by the constitution. In the case of Mugler v. Kansas, supra, Mr. Justice Harlan, delivering the opinion of the court, said: “In the License Cases, 5 How. 504 [12 L. ed. 256], the question was, whether certain statutes of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, re
We have made the foregoing lengthy quotation from the opinion of the court in the Mugler case, because, in an orderly and logical way, it leads up to and shows what, in the writer’s opinion, would be the correct answer to one of the most serious questions made in this record; that is, can the legislature prohibit, under penalties,
Whatever may be the truth of the contention, upon the one hand, that alcoholic beverages are injurious and pernicious in their effects upon the mind and body of the consumer, and the contention, upon the other hand, that such liquors have food value and if used in moderation they may be promotive of health, and that the temperate use of such drinks is not a menace to society, we are not bound, for the purposes of this decision, to concern ourselves seriously with these considerations. Upon the question whether or not the use of alcoholic beverages by a community is pernicious and productive "of vice, crime, disease, and pauperism, it must, be conceded that the members of the legislative body were authorized, by a knowledge of facts which are the common possession of intelligent and reading men and women in every community, to conclude that the consumption of ardent spirits was productive of the evils attributed to them. That being true, they had a right to deal
One objection frequently urged to the passage of prohibitory statutes like those in question in this case is, that such prohibitory laws do not in fact prohibit. The legislative body might well have concluded that the keeping of alcoholic liquors in any place, however private, was one of the effective means of removing the defect in prohibitory statutes just indicated. In the ease of Purity Extract Company v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192 (33 Sup. Ct. 44, 57 L. ed. 184), it is said: “That the State in the exercise of its police power may prohibit the selling of intoxicating liquors is undoubted. Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129 [21 L. ed. 929]; Boston Beer Company v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25 [24 L. ed. 989]; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 [supra]; Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1 [supra]; Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86 [11 Sup. Ct. 13, 34 L. ed. 620]. It is also well established that when a State, exerting its recognized authority, undertakes to suppress what it is free to regard as a public evil, it may adopt such measures having reasonable relation to that end as it may deem necessary in order to -make its action effective. It does not follow that because a transaction separately considered is innocuous it may not be included in a prohibition the scope of which is regarded as essential in the legislative judgment to accomplish a purpose within the admitted power of the government. Booth v. Illinois, 184 U. S. 425 [22 Sup. 425, 46 L. ed. 623]; Otis v. Parker, 187 U. S. 606
There are some, who entertain the opinion that the prevention of the traffic can properly be made the end of laws passed in the exercise of the police power, but that the prevention of the consumption off ardent spirits can not properly be made the object of legislation. This does not comport with the conclusion reached, after mature consideration, by publicists of eminent ability and by courts, as announced by them in judicial utterances in cases involving legislation in many respects of the same general character as that which we now have under consideration. In the early case of Lincoln v. Smith, 27 Vt. 328, Bennett, J., delivering the opinion of the court, after restating certain of the principles laid down in the license cases to which reference was made in the Mugler case, supra, and after the citation of certain other cases, said: “Though the act of our legislature is entitled an act ‘to prevent the traffic in intoxicating liquors for the purpose of drinking,’ yet the primary object and end of the law is the prevention of intemperance, pauperism, and crime; and the prohibition of the traffic is but the. medium through which the object and end of the law is to be obtained. If it be once granted ’that the use of intoxicating liquors as a drink is worse than useless, and intemperance a legitimate consequence of such use, and that intemperance is an evil, injurious to health and sound morals, and productive of pauperism and crime, it seems to us that a law designed to prevent such consequences must clearly fall within the class of laws dominated police regulations. The legislature in passing the law in question doubtless supposed that the traffic and drinking of intoxicating liquors went hand in hand, and that they were even more than twin sisters, that they were not only born together, but that they would also die together, and that by cut
Par-t of what we have said above and a portion of the extracts from the opinions delivered in the adjudicated eases bear directly upon the constitutional right of a citizen to keep and possess intoxicants for private and personal use, and still more of what is said above bears indirectly upon that question. By the expression, “constitutional right,” as just used, we mean a right guaranteed to the citizen by the constitution and so guaranteed as to prevent legislative interference with that right. And if what we have said above, and what is said by other courts in the extracts from their judicial utterances which we have set forth, be sound, the ab
It is insisted with especial emphasis that section 20 of the act of November 17, 1915, is unconstitutional and void, on the ground that it is violative of that provision of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States which declares that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The section just referred to reads as follows: “Sec. 20. Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no property rights of any kind shall exist in said prohibited liquors and beverages, or in the vessels kept or used for the purpose of violating any provision of this act or any law for the promotion of temperance or for the suppression of the evils of intemperance; nor in any such liquors when received, possessed, or stored at any forbidden place or anywhere in a quantity forbidden by law, or when kept, stored, or deposited in any place in this State for the purpose of sale or unlawful disposition or unlawful furnishing or- distribution; and in all such cases the liquors .and beverages, and the vessels and receptacles in which such liquors are contained, and the property herein named, kept, or used for the purpose of violating the law as aforesaid, are hereby de
As we have pointed out above, the whisky seized in these cases necessarily had no value, for it could not be kept for use, handled, nor sold. It was deprived of all value by the terms of the act which we have upheld; and’ the vessels in which the liquors were contained were necessarily of but trifling value.
In certain of the cases which we have before us it was insisted that, where intoxicating liquors are kept for personal use in a building used exclusively as a dwelling, not for the purpose of sale or disposition contrary to law but solely as one’s own personal property, the inhibitory terms of the act do not apply; and attention is called to the last clause of section 2 of the act of November 17, 1915, which reads as follows: “but this inhibition does not include, and nothing in this act shall affect, the social serving of such liquors and beverages in private residences in ordinary social intercourse;” and to the language of section 7 of the same act, which reads as follows: “That the keeping of the liquors or beverages, or any of them, mentioned in section 1 of this act, in any building not exclusively used for a dwelling, shall be prima facie evidence that they are kept for sale or with intent to dispose of same contrary to the law.” Our reply to this contention is, that the language of section 2 and section 7, just quoted, is to be construed in pari materia with section 16 of the act of November 18, 1915, which makes it unlawful for any person to possess or have in possession at one time more than the stated amount of inhibited liquors. The section last referred to renders it absolutely unlawful to keep more than the stated amounts in any place. It is of general application, not limited to places of business nor public places, but applies to any place where liquors may be kept; while section 2 of the act of November 17, 1915, makes it unlawful for a person
There is no merit in the contention that section 20 of the act of November 17th is unconstitutional, as being in conflict • with art. 1, sec. 8,'paragraphs 1 and 3, of the constitution of the United States, on the ground that it “impairs the power of the Congress of the United States to raise revenue for the support of the government thereof, and to regulate commerce among the several States, as hindering and impeding the exercise of those powers.” It seems that in the decision in the cases of Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Railway Co., and Clark Distilling Co. v. American Express Co., recently decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, 242 U. S. 311 (37 Sup. Ct. 180), upholding the Webb-Kenyon act, the constitutional objection to the Georgia law, based on the contention that it impairs the power of Congress over interstate commerce, is disposed of adversely to the plaintiffs.
The point is also made that certain provisions of these, acts under consideration are in the nature of retroactive laws. The prohibitory acts were passed on November 17, and November 18, 1915. They did not become of force until May 1, 1916, about five and a half months after their passage, and the prohibitory declarations in these laws did not take effect until then, and did not seek to penalize the keeping or having of the prohibited liquors prior to May 1, 1916. We do not think, therefore, that the law was in any sense an ex post facto law or retroactive in its nature. Questions
There is no merit in the contention that the act of November 17, 1915, is unconstitutional because it contains matter different from what is expressed in its title, in that there is nothing in the title to indicate that there would be no property rights in liquor held and possessed by petitioners at their dwellings and not kept for the purpose of sale or for the purpose of avoiding the law. The title of the act declares it to be an act, among other things, to prevent evasions and violations of certain laws of Georgia referred to, and to make the enforcement thereof speedy, certain, and effective, which purposes are to be accomplished-in certain ways pointed out in the title, among them being that of abolishing “all property rights in said liquors and in certain enumerated classes of physical objects when kept or used for the purpose of violating said laws.” And, as we have already pointed out, the keeping of liquors beyond certain quantities, even in dwellings and private residences, was a violation of the law. Moreover, the inhibition against keeping liquors in private dwellings might' well have been regarded by ,the legislature as constituting a part of the measure necessary to prevent an evasion of the prohibitory laws.
There is no merit in any of the objections, based upon constitutional grounds, which are not specially dealt with, urged against the validity of the statutes in question.
Judgment affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting. In so far as section 20 of the act approved November 17, 1915 (Acts 1915, p. 77), is to be construed as denying a property right in certain liquors and beverages of the kinds described in section one of the act, which an individual might have had in those liquors in his possession in this State prior to May 1, 1916 (the date on which the act went into effect), and in so far as the act on the basis of such denial of property authorized summary destruction of liquors which a person lawfully owned and possessed in this State before the act went into effect, and which he continued to keep after the act went into effect, that part of the act amounts to divesting an owner of his property by legislation, and is violative of those provisions of the State and Federal constitutions which guarantee the right of private property