18 A.2d 587 | Md. | 1941
Bernard Powell, the appellant, was indicted, tried and convicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City for unlawfully selling an alcoholic beverage without a license and otherwise violating the Maryland Alcoholic Beverages Act. The evidence showed conclusively that he sold diluted denatured alcohol in a house on Watson Street in Baltimore. The question to be decided is whether the sale of denatured alcohol for beverage purposes without a license is a violation of the law.
The statute provides that it shall be unlawful for any person to sell an alcoholic beverage without a license, except as therein provided. Code, art. 2B, sec. 2. It further declares that the term "alcoholic beverage" includes any liquor containing one-half of one per cent or more of alcohol by volume, which is "fit for beverage purposes." Code, art. 2B, sec. 1. The appellant contends that since denatured alcohol is poisonous it is not fit for beverage purposes.
At the trial of the case in the court below, sitting without a jury, the chief of the bureau of Standards of Baltimore *401
testified that the alcohol, denatured according to government specifications, contained wood alcohol and gasoline. After being diluted, it contained 34.4 per cent of alcohol. The Court granted an advisory instruction offered by the State that if the Court found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had sold for beverage purposes denatured alcohol, diluted with water so as to contain 34.4 per cent of alcohol, then as a matter of law it was an "alcohol beverage" as defined by the statute. The Court rejected the defendant's prayer that even though he had sold the denatured alcohol for beverage purposes, the Court might find him not guilty. If an instruction in a criminal case be erroneous, even though in a mere advisory form, it may be made the subject of an exception which can be considered on appeal. Beard v.State,
The cardinal rule of construction of statutes is to ascertain the intention of the Legislature. This intention must be sought, first of all, in the language of the statute itself. But if a word is fairly susceptible of two or more interpretations, the Court should seek the intention by considering the object to be accomplished, and adopt the meaning which will harmonize with the general scheme of the statute and assist in carrying out the legislative purpose. United States v. Nomel Products Co.,
According to the dictionaries, the following are among the meanings of the adjective "fit": (1) comformable to a standard of right, duty or appropriateness; proper; suitable; befitting; and (2) adopted to an end, object or design. We hold that the Legislature intended the second definition: "adapted to an end, object or design." This accords with the view of the Ohio Court of Appeals, which applied to the word "fit" in the liquor statute of that State an ancient definition said to have been used as early as the third century: "in correspondence with some other thing." Ballabanos v. State,
In 1881, when Kansas adopted prohibition, the Supreme Court of Kansas held that the law was not intended to forbid the sale of well-known medicines and culinary and toilet articles containing alcohol, but might apply to compounds or preparations which, while ostensibly made for medicinal purposes, are used merely as substitutes for the usual intoxicating beverages. Justice Brewer stated in that early case: "Whether any particular compound or preparation of this class is then within or without the statute, is a question of fact, to be established by the testimony and determined by a jury. The courts may not *403
say as a matter of law that * * * any particular ingredient does or does not * * * prevent it from ever becoming an intoxicating beverage." Intoxicating Liquor Cases,
For some years, however, the Courts took the view that denatured alcohol, being poisonous, is unpotable and not an alcoholic beverage. The Supreme Court of Vermont, for instance, asserted in 1900: "Such alcohol is obtained by the destructive distillation of wood, is ranked as a narcotic poison, and * * * it kills the person drinking it. It was not intended to be used as a beverage, and could not be so used." Fabor v. Green,
Likewise in New York, when it was contended that whiskey containing wood alcohol did not come within the scope of the National Prohibition Act because it was unfit for human consumption, the Court declared: "If such an argument were to prevail, it would constitute an easy defense to many a bootlegger called upon to answer to a charge of violation the National Prohibition Act. He could say that the beverage which he sold was adulterated with some deleterious ingredient which made it unfit to drink, and therefore he had not violated the statute. No Court would countenance such a defense." Bolivar v. Monnat, 248 N YS. 722, 728. In a Federal case, where the defendants were charged with transporting denatured alcohol, the Court said that it was not necessary to prove that the liquid was actually fit for beverage purposes at the time of seizure, for otherwise the purpose of the law might be easily defeated. Hawthorne v. UnitedStates, 4 Cir.,
Of course, when enforcement authorities have classified a medicinal preparation as unfit for beverage purposes, and no permit is accordingly required for its sale, a dealer can not be prosecuted for selling it for non-beverage pruposes without a permit. To hold that one who deals in such preparations in good faith is guilty of violating the statute would be to give it a scope which the Legislature never intended. State v. Sandman,
It was held by the Supreme Court of Indiana that since wood alcohol is a poison, it is not an "intoxicating liquor" within the prohibition statute. But in that case the Court explained: "It is not alleged and is not proven that wood alcohol had ever been used as a beverage or sold as a beverage, or that it is a liquor reasonably likely or intended to be used as a beverage."Hamilton v. State,
In 1930 the United States Supreme Court decided that a permit to use intoxictaing liquor in the manufacture of *406
medicinal preparations is not a permit to manufacture "liquor" within the meaning of the National Prohibition Act. Campbell v.Galeno Chemical Co.,
As the appellant violated the Alcoholic Beverages Act, we affirm the judgment entered upon the verdict of guilty. In view of the public interest in the case, the trial court, with the acquiescence of the State's Attorney, ordered the costs of the appeal to be paid out of the Criminal Court Account.
Judgment affirmed. *407