Citation Numbers: 113 Va. 773
Judges: Harrison
Filed Date: 6/13/1912
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/23/2022
delivered the opinion of the court.
The indictment in this case charges the plaintiff in error with unlawfully selling and dispensing ardent spirits between midnight of Saturday, July, 1910, and sunrise of the succeeding Monday morning. There is no charge that the accused was selling ardent spirits without a license, but the prosecution is for a violation of the statute prohibiting the sale of ardent spirits
• As Sunday is from twelve o’clock Saturday night until that hour Sunday night, .the charge of the indictment, that the sale was between midnight of Saturday and sunrise of the succeeding Monday morning, may be true, and yet the accused be innocent of violating the statute, because if the sale was made after twelve o’clock Sunday night and before sunrise Monday morning, it was made at a time not inhibited by the statute.
It is clear, therefore, that the demurrer to the indictment should have been sustained, because the sale, could have been made as therein charged and still not have been a violation of the law.
The judgment complained of must be reversed, the verdict of the jury set aside, and this court will enter the order the lower court ought to have' entered, sustaining the demurrer to the indictment and dismissing the prosecution.
jReversed.