63 Ga. 616 | Ga. | 1879
No motion was made for a new trial, and the case turns purely upon exceptions to rulings of the court. These are confusedly set out, to say the least, but we will dispose of them as wc gather them with some difficulty from the bill of exceptions, and as we understand them.
The important question is, did the men chosen as grand jurors act and find the bill true? Are those who found the charge true identical with those who were drawn to pass upon the charge ? The question is not so much idem soncms as it is idem persona; and there is no doubt, with the explanation of the judge, that the same persons who found the bill were drawn and put'on the minutes to pass on it. 18 Ga., 738; 58 Ga., 35.
This series, on analyzing it, will be found to consist of objections because counsel were not allowed to elicit immaterial evidence, or where at all material, the evidence was afterwards disclosed in another way, and the defendant got the benefit of it, or exceptions to the remark of the court in ruling such evidence out that he would give them the benefit of the point, which was merely, as the judge certifies, a polite way of overruling the counsel. We fail to see error in any of these rulings of the court.
We see no error in the first exception. The current of authority in the other states is that in such cases, where the object of the statute is the protection of minors from ruinous habits, the bare fact that the sale is to the minor concludes the case. The liquor dealer sells at his peril, and no matter what inquiry he makes, if he makes a mistake, however honest it may be, he is guilty. But in our own state a different rule, and a more lenient one, has been adopted, and the court below followed it. In the case of Stern vs. The State the rule of special diligence, in order to show an honest mistake, was laid down, and every element in the charge of the judge in this case was there laid down. See 53 Ga., 226. That, too, was the playing billiards, not so bad as selling liquors to minors. Bad, as leading to drinking and gambling, but not so ruinous as the last two. Tlie law ought to require special diligence in the retailer, when he sells to the young, to -ascertain that the buyer is a man over twenty-one, and no longer under parents and guardians.
The principle that tlie sale to the minor makes a prima facie case of guilt was laid down by this court by analogy in the case of Amos vs. The State, in 34 Ga., 531. There it was held that when the state proved that the' liquor was sold to the «lave.it was enough. The seller must then show
On the whole, we fail to detect any error in the presentation of the case to the jury by the presiding judge, and believe his view has been sustained by the prior rulings of analogous eases, as well as by great principles of public policy.
Even a witness’s statement is entitled to about that degree of weight; but the latter clause is qualified by the first part of this charge, and the whole gives the spirit of the act as we construed it prior to the amendment of the last legislature. Whether that amendment, which allows a. mere statement of the party charged with crime to overthrow the sworn testimony of witnesses, wholly disinterested, be wise or not, it does not become us to say. Certainly full force was given by the court below to the law as it stood construed before that act, and that is not retroactive. 43 Ga,., 368.
Judgment affirmed.