Peterson v. State

Fowler, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant was indicted in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County for selling beer to a minor. He was convicted and sentenced. During the course of the trial four exceptions were taken by the traverser.

We will briefly consider them in the order in which they arose in the Court below : I. Robert R. Cook, prosecuting witness, who was the only witness produced by the State, testified that he was a minor, and that on the day named in the indictment he purchased from the traverser one glass of beer and paid for it. On cross-examination of this witness the traverser asked him the following questions : “ Did you not at the time of buying said beer represent yourself to be over twenty-one ■years of age ?” To the asking of this cpiestion the State objected, and the objection was sustained on the ground that it was immaterial whether the witness had so represented himself to be of age or not. It is clear that no testimony is ¹⁹⁶ admissible in a case like this for the purpose of showing an absence of any.intent to violate the law which prohibits the sale of liquor or beer to a minor. For under the ruling in Carroll v. State, 63 Md. 551 , if the purchaser be in fact a minor it will not avail the traverser to show that he believed and had a right to believe, for any reason, that he was an adult.

It ■was upon the authority of the case just cited that the Attorney-General justified the ruling of the Court below, and if there were no other reason why the question should have been allowed, the ruling would have been free from objection.. The material fact of the minority of the purchaser of the beer had been sworn to by the prosecuting witness, and his testimony was the only proof of it in the cause, and it seems to us that the question was a proper one to be asked and answered for the purpose of laying a foundation to offer evidence of contradictory statements. If, in answer to the question proposed, the witness had admitted that he had on the occasion mentioned represented or stated that he was of age, the jury, may very well have refused to believe the statement he made under oath in his examination in chief. And if he had denied that he made the statement in' question, it is clear