176 N.W. 39 | S.D. | 1920
Defendant was convicted of the offense of unlawfully keeping and storing intoxicating liqjuors, and has brought the cause before this court on appeal. Appellant does not question the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict. The evidence and proceeding's on the trial do not appear as part of the appeal record. By demurrer and motion in arrest of judgment the sufficiency of the information to state a public offense is challenged. The substance of the charging part of the information was that defendant on the 18th day of October, 1918, at the county of Lake, state of South Dakota, did then and there unlawfully keep and store a large quantity of intoxicating liquors, with the intent and purpose of evading the provisions of chapter 281, Laws 1917. The specific contention is made that the information fails to designate any one of the numerous offenses charged under the statute referred to, and fails to allege with sufficient certainty the particular circumstances of the offepse charged. It is apparent, and also conceded, that the information was drawn and based on the provision of section 71 of said chapter 281, which provides that—
*515 '“The keeping, storing, or giving away of intoxicating liquors, or any shift or device whatever, to evade the provisions of this act shall be deemed unlawful, and shall be punished as unlawful selling is punished.
Section 89 of said chapter 281, now section 10318, ’Rev. Code 1919, provides that upon the trial of any information under this act proof of the finding of intoxicating liquors in the possession of the accused, unless he is one legally axxthox'ized to sell or possess the same, shall be presximption evidence that such liquors were kept contrary to law. It was the evident ixxtent of the Legislatxxre to cast xxpon the accused, found with intoxicating liquors in his possession, the burden of showing the pux-pose for which he kept and stored such liquor. 'Appellant contends that this statutory presumption is an xxncoxistitutional infringement of his personal rights and compels him to give evidence agairxst himself. We are of the opinion that this contention is not tenable. The same principle exists and' is applied in prosecutions for larceny. The possession of recently
We therefore .hold that the information in question was sufficiently certain as to time and place and substantive allegations, the same being in the substantive language of the statute creating the offense, and that the said information is not in conflict with any known constitutional provision.
Finding no error, the judgment appealed from- is affirmed.