8 Ga. App. 747 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1911
The indictment charged that the accused, in the county of the prosecution, “did sell and barter, for a valuable consideration, directly and indirectly, and did give away, to induce trade, at his place of business, and did keep and furnish at public places, and manufacture, and did keep on hand at his place of business, alcoholic, spirituous, malt, and intoxicating liquors, intoxicating hitters, and drinks which, if drunk to excess, will produce intoxication.” To the indictment the accused filed a number of demurrers. We will not set them, out in detail, but will discuss topically the points raised by them. The demurrer presents the proposition that it is not permissible for the State to prosecute through an indictment charging' in a single count the sale of intoxicating liquors, the keeping on hand of intoxicating liquors at a public place, the keeping on hand of intoxicating liquors at a place
We would do violence to the precedents to hold that the allegation that the defendant “kept on hand at his place of business” intoxicating liquors of the kind just mentioned would not be sufficient. The charge of manufacturing liquor also stands in this respect upon the same footing as the charge of selling.
As to the keeping on hand at public places, we do not think that such a general charge is sufficient. The particular public place should be specified. This is in consonance with the precedents in cases of prosecutions for carrying liquor to churches, for violations of other statutes intended to protect the peace and sanctity of places of worship, for carrying weapons to courts of justice, and for a large number of other offenses in which the character of the place is an essential of the crime. We have no inclination to diminish the scope of these precedents in so far as they require definiteness in alleging the particular place involved. In this case the court committed error, in our judgment, in holding the indictment sufficient as against special demurrer raising the point that the public place at which it is alleged that the defendant kept intoxicating liquors is not specified. However, it appears that upon the trial there was not the slightest contention that the defendant had kept intoxicating liquors at any public place; and no evidence on this subject was introduced. At the trial the only two features of the indictment as to which any evidence was introduced were the one charging the selling and the other charging the keeping on hand at the defendant’s place of business. Under these circumstances, we see no possibility by which the erroneous ruling of the court could have resulted in other than mere theoretical prejudice to the defendant. There may be physical precedents upon which we might base a ruling that an erroneous decision by the trial judge as to demurrers to the initial pleadings so vitiates the whole trial as to relieve the reviewing court of the necessity of looking further into