People v. Cox

Citations

• 106 A.D. 299
• 19 N.Y. Crim. 481
• 3 Liquor Tax Rep. 580
• 94 N.Y.S. 526

Syllabus

<p>Liquor Tax Law — the word “ liquor ” includes malt rose — an indictment for its violation need not allege that the beverage was intoxicating — quiere, whether a County Court may be held by .a county judge of another county where there is a special county judge.</p> <p>It was the deliberate iritention and purpose of the Legislature, in passing the Liquor Tax Law (Laws of 1896, chap. 112), to omit therefrom the words “strong,” spirituous” and “ intoxicating,” and to include within the prohibitive parts of the act the traffic in all alcoholic beverages within the definition of “ liquor ” as contained in section 2 of said statute and to relieve the court from determining as a fact whether or not the liquor sold or given away is intoxicating.</p> <p>A beverage known as malt rose, which is made to imitate lager beer and has the same color, taste and appearance as lager beer and is bottled in the same way, and which contains from seventy-four hundredths of one per cent to one and eighteen hundredths per cent in volume of alcohol, eleven hundredths of one per cent of which is put into the beverage and the remainder of which is the result of the fermentation of the concoction itself, is a “liquor” within the meaning of the Liquor Tax Law.</p> <p>An indictment, charging a sale of such beverage in violation of the provisions of the Liquor Tax Law, need not allege that such beverage is intoxicating and upon the trial of such an indictment, the court may properly charge the jury that the question for their determination is whether the defendant had trafficked in distilled and rectified spirits, wine, fermented and malt liquors, and that it is immaterial whether such liquors were intoxicating.</p> <p>Where the county judge of Lewis county, at the request of the county judge of St. Lawrence county, opened a term of the County Court of St. Lawrence county on October 17, 1904, and continued to hold said court pursuant to said request until October twenty-first, when the county ju