149 Ga. 489 | Ga. | 1919
(After stating the foregoing facts.) The defendant was indicted and tried in the court below under an act of the General Assembly passed at the extraordinary session of March, 1917. The caption of this act is as follows: “An act to amend and supplement the prohibition laws of this State; to make it unlawful to transport, ship, or deliver in this State . . any spirituous, vinous, malt, or fermented liquors, or other intoxicating liquors or beverages, except alcohol and wine under certain restrictions and limitations; to make it unlawful to have, receive, possess, or control any such liquors, except alcohol for medicinal, mechanical, and scientific purposes,- and wine for sacramental purposes under conditions prescribed; to make it unlawful to distill, manufacture, or make any alcoholic, spirituous, vinous, or malted liquors or intoxicating beverages in this State; to provide for the punishment of violators of the provisions of this act; to provide for the seizure, condemnation, and sale of property used in violation of this act, and for the disposition of the funds arising from such sale; to provide additional fees and costs in cases of conviction for violation of certain provisions of the prohibition laws of this State; to repeal the acts approved November 18, 1915, and August 19, 1916, and certain portions of the act approved November 17, 1915; and for other purposes.” Section 1 of the act provides, so far as applicable to this case, that “it shall be unlawful for any common carrier, corporation, firm or individual to transport, ship, or carry, by any means whatsoever, with or without hire, or cause the same to be done, from any point without this State to any point within this State, or from place to place within this State, whether intended for personal use or otherwise, any spirituous, vinous, malted, fermented, or intoxicating liquors, or any of the prohibited liquors or beverages, as are defined in the act approved November 17, 1915, being can act to make clearer and more certain’ the prohibition laws of this State, etc., or any alcoholic compound or malt liquors, whether intended for beverage purposes or not, but which can be diluted, and when so diluted may be used as a beverage and will produce intoxication. It shall be unlawful for any corporation, firm, person or individual to receive from any common carrier, corporation, firm, person or individual, or to have, control, or possess, in this State, any of said enumerated liquors, . . save as is hereinafter excepted.” Under section 16 of the act it is pro
The question for decision is whether, under the indictment, the agreed state of facts, and the act above mentioned, construed in connection with sections 426 to 430, inclusive, of the Penal Code of 1910, the defendant, Southern Express Company, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and should, on conviction, be punished accordingly. Under the view that we take of this ease the defendant has been illegally convicted; and accordingly we think that the Court of Appeals erred in affirming that conviction. It will be seen from a consideration of the act in question that the legislature had one main purpose in view with' reference to common carriers, and that was to make it unlawful to transport or deliver, in this State, “any spirituous, vinous, malt, or fermented liquors, or other intoxicating liquors or beverages, except alcohol and wine under certain restrictions and limitations.” It will be perceived that pure alcohol was excepted from the operation of the act. It is true that section 3 provides that “any common carrier may trans
It is argued that the act authorizes pure alcohol to be shipped from a point in another State to a wholesale druggist in this State, but that no shipment of pure alcohol can be made from such wholesale druggist within this State to a retail druggist within the State. The evident purpose of the legislature was to prohibit the use of alcoholic liquors, etc., for beverage purposes; but it is just as evident that the legislature intended to allow the use of pure alcohol for medicinal purposes. It would be strange indeed, and inconsistent, to impute to the legislature the purpose of permitting pure alcohol to be shipped .to wholesale druggists within this State, and yet deny to retail druggists the right to have shipped to them pure alcohol from such wholesale druggist. It can not be said that the legislature permitted the transportation and shipment of alcohol from other States into this State because of the fact that that was an interstate shipment and therefore it had no power or authority to prevent such shipment. It will be called to mind that the act of 1917 was passed subsequently to what is known as the Webb-Kenyon act of Congress of March 1, 1913 (e. 90, 37 Stat. 699, U. S. Comp. St. § 8739), under which the legislatures of the different States could prohibit the shipment from points without the State to points within the State, notwithstand
Judgment reversed.