178 Ind. 588 | Ind. | 1912
Appellee was charged by appellant with the offense of selling intoxicating liquors as a beverage in Howard county, Indiana, on November 13, 1911, without a license. Appellee, being arraigned, entered a plea of not guilty. The ease was tried by a jury, and at the close of the evidence the court instructed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty. The jury, in compliance with said instruction, returned a verdict of not guilty, and final judgment was rendered thereon, discharging appellee. From this judgment the State appeals.
The evidence given in the cause on behalf of the state showed the sale of intoxicating liquors on November 13, 1911, at appellee’s saloon in the city of Kokomo, Howard county, Indiana, as charged in the affidavit. Appellee did not deny the sale, but claimed to have a license under the laws of the State to sell intoxicating liquors as a beverage at retail in said city of Kokomo, granted to him by a judgment of the Howard Circuit Court on October 12, 1911, and that said license authorized him to make the sale charged in the indictment. A paper, purporting to be a license granted by order of the Howard Circuit Court to appellee on October 12, 1911, for one year from October 12, 1911, to sell intoxicating liquors, etc., in Kokomo, Indiana, was read in evidence, over the objection of the State.
The State insists that “the judgment of the Howard Circuit Court granting said license was without jurisdiction and void, and the license issued thereon was void, and did not authorize appellee to sell intoxicating liquors as a beverage in said city of Kokomo, for the reason that a local option election had been held in the city of Kokomo on February 28, 1911, under the local option law approved February 3, 1911 (Acts 1911 p. 8), and the result thereof, as declared
On February 28, 1911, a local option election was held in the city of Kokomo, Howard county, Indiana, under the local option law (Acts 1911, supra), and the board of election commissioners certified the result of said election to be that a majority of the votes cast at said election was against prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage in said city. The result as certified by said election commissioners was contested before the board of commissioners, and, after a trial of said contest, said board on March 22, 1911, made and entered an order and judgment declaring the result of said local option election to be that a majority of the legal votes cast at said election was in favor of prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage in said city.
The proceedings in regard to said local option election and the acts of the election officers, election commissioners and the board of commissioners of Howard county are more fully set out in the opinion in Jay v. O’Donnell (1912), ante, 282, 98 N. E. 349. It is provided in said local option law that “if a majority of the legal votes cast at said election shall be in favor of prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage in the territory in which said election was held under this act, it shall thereafter be unlawful for said commissioners or any court to grant a license to any person for the sale of intoxicating liquors in such territory, and the board of commissioners thereafter shall have no power or jurisdiction to hear or consider applications for license to sell intoxicating liquors nor to grant such license to any person in such territory until at a subsequent election held under this act a majority of the legal voters of
The appeal is therefore sustained.
Note.—Reported, in 99 N. E. 983. See, also, under (3) 23 Cyc. 103—New Anno.; (4) 16 Cyc. 870—11 Anno.; (5) 23 Cyc. 92. For a discussion of the inquiry into the validity of a license produced by the defendant in a prosecution for the sale of liquors without a license, see 12 Ann. Cas. 714.