Johnson v. State

Citations

• 63 Miss. 228

Syllabus

<p>1. Penal Statutes. How construed.</p> <p>Penal statutes must be so construed as not to embrace cases not plainly within their meaning and letter.</p> <p>2. Liquor. Purchase of gallon by two persons, whether unlawful retailing.</p> <p>A. had been accustomed to sell whisky by the gallon. B. went to him to buy from him as usual. A. said that he was out of whisky, but that he wanted some himself. So B. gave A. fifty cents, and A. added the additional money necessary, and went over to II. and bought one gallon, and returned and gave B. one pint, a quantity in proportion to the money furnished by B. Held, that this was not a violation of law forbidding the sale of whisky in a less quantity than one gallon without a special license, as it was a joint purchase, not a sale by A. to B.</p> <p>3. Same. Purchase by agent. Who guilty of retailing.</p> <p>And if B. had given A. money to buy for him (B.) less than a gallon of whisky, and A. had bought and delivered the whisky to B. in good faith, A. being but the agent of B., the buyer, would not have been guilty of violating the law, the seller alone being the guilty party.</p>