Pollard v. Commonwealth
Pollard v. Commonwealth
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
The plaintiff in error, hereinafter called the defendant, was indicted for a violation of the prohibition act (Acts 1918, p. 578, Ch. 388). The first count is in the form prescribed by section 7 of the act, usually called the omnibus count. The second charges an unlawful transportation of ardent spirits from one point in the State to another point in the State, and the third count charges an unlawful bringing of ardent spirits into the State from a point without the State. The defendant demurred to the indictment and to each count thereof. The demurrer was overruled. Thereupon the defendant was put upon his trial upon the merits and found guilty.
The only error assigned is the judgment of the trial court overruling the demurrer. The grounds of demurrer were as follows:
“The act of Congress commonly known as the Volstead act is the only statute now existing in this jurisdiction under which such a prosecution as this against this defendant can now be had and said Volstead act has superseded the provisions of the State law under which this indictment is found relative to the charges made in said indictment against this defendant.
“3. The only power the State of Virginia has now relative to intoxicating liquors is derived from the eighteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the State can enact no law or make anything relative to intoxicating liquors an offense which cannot be an offense under said eighteenth amendment and the indictment in this case attempts to make the simple transportation of intoxicating liquors a criminal offense when only transportation for beverage purposes can be made an offense.
“4. The said indictment and each count thereof does not inform the defendant of the nature and causes of the charges against him and is therefore in conflict with the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States declaring that no person can be deprived of his liberty without due process of law.”
“Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article, the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.”
“Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
It is argued that since the adoption of the eighteenth amendment “the only power now possessed by Congress or by the several States under this amendment is to enact appropriate legislation to prevent the transportation, for beverage purposes, of intoxicating liquors into a State. Congress cannot and the several States cannot prevent its transportation for any other purpose. Such laws which absosolutely prohibit all transportation of ardent spirits in their borders and which were valid by reason of the Webb-Kenyon act, necessarily became, upon the adoption of the eighteenth amendment, invalid and of no force. Only such laws as forbid the transportation for beverage purposes of ardent spirits into their territory remain valid. Congress
For the reasons stated the judgment of the trial court must be affirmed.
Affirmed.
Reference
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- Syllabus
- 1. Intoxicating Liquors—State Prohibition Law not Superseded by the Eighteenth Amendment nor the Volstead Act.—The State prohibition law has not been superseded by the eighteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States, nor by the Volstead act. 2. Intoxicating Liquors—Indictment and Information—Validity of Omnibus Count in Indictment Permitted by Section 7 of the Prohibition Act.—Section 7 of the prohibition act (Acts, 1918, p. 578, ch. 388), permitting a number of violations of the act to be charged in a single count in the manner prescribed by that section, is valid. 3. Intoxicating Liquors—Transportation of Spirits into the State. —So much of section 39 of the prohibition act as forbids the simple importation of ardent spirits into the State from a point without the State is not nullified by the eighteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which forbids the transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes. 4. Intoxicating Liquors — Eighteenth Amendment—Object.—The object of the eighteenth amendment was not to curtail the powers of Congress but to confer upon Congress powers which it did not theretofore possess; nor was it the intention of the amendment to take away the police powers of the State over the subject of intoxicating liquor. 5. Intoxicating Liquors — Transportation—Power of Congress— Webb-Kenyon Act.—The Webb-Kenyon act (37 U. S. Stat. at L. 699 [U. S. Comp. St., sec. 8739]), which prohibited absolutely and entirely the transportation of ardent spirits into another State from a point without the State in violation of any law of said' State, was enacted in aid of State statutes on prohibition, and enabled such States to absolutely prohibit the bringing into the State of intoxicating liquors for use therein, and was a valid enactment, and is not in conflict .with either the eighteenth amendment or the Volstead act, and is still in force. 6. Intoxicating Liquors—Transportation—Power of Congress— Webb-Kenyon Act—Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act. —The power of Congress to regulate or to prohibit the transportation of intoxicating liquors in interstate commerce was fully covered by the commerce clause of the Constitution, and that power was not taken away or curtailed by the eighteenth amendment, and so much of the Webb-Kenyon act as was not in conflict with the Volstead act is still kept in force by section 35 of the Volstead act (41 Stat. at L., 317).