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The Supreme Court of Indiana.

sor. The commission expired April 27, 1885. Upon the whole, it was not satisfac tory to the bar of the State. The indi vidual members of the commission prepared opinions in cases assigned to them, and after these opinions had received the approval of the court, — the commission and court sit ting jointly, — they were adopted and made the opinions of the court, and judgment rendered accordingly.

These opinions thus became the opinions of the court, and found a place in their re ported opinions. At the November election of 1886 Judge Elliott was re-elected, his second term be ginning Jan 3, 1887. From the beginning of 188 1 a change is quite perceptible in the decisions of the court, especially in criminal cases. The court gradually brushed aside techni calities, and decided the cases upon their merits. Previous to that time it was diffi cult to sustain a con JAMES S. viction in a well-de fended criminal case. Gradually and imperceptibly technicalities in criminal cases had assumed undue pro portions. This state of affairs was largely due to the technical mind of Judge Worden; and the change was due to the new blood placed upon the bench in 1881. Not until then did it seem possible to sustain in that court a conviction for illegally selling intoxi cating liquors, obtained upon circumstantial evidence,1 although death penalties thus ob tained were affirmed. Another evidence of the brushing aside of technicalities was a de1 Dant v. The State, 83 Ind. 60.

cision that the courts judicially know that beer is a malt liquor prepared by fermenta tion, and that it was not necessary to prove that it was intoxicating,1 as had been pre viously necessary under the rulings of the court. Questions of grave importance came be fore the court in 1886 and 1887, which went to the very foundations of the State. In 1886 the LieutenantGovernor, Mahlon D. Manson, resigned. He, with the Governor, had been elected in 1884 for a term of four years from the follow ing January. Gover nor Gray applied to the Attorney-General, Francis T. Hord, for an opinion upon the question whether a successor to Manson could be elected at the November election of 1886, and received an answer in the affirma tive. The Democratic Convention, following this opinion, nomi nated Hon. John C. Nelson for Lieuten ant-Governor, and sub FRAZER sequently the Repub licans nominated Hon. Robert S. Robertson, The latter received After the election a majority of 3,200. Alonzo G. Smith, the Democratic President of the Senate, who, if there was no Lieu tenant-Governor, would hold that office, and be Governor if the chief executive of the State were to die or resign, brought an ac tion to prevent the Secretary of State from delivering to the Speaker of the House the sealed returns of the election of LieutenantGovernor,which were directed to the Speaker, as required by law, in the care of the Secre1 Myers v. The State, 93 Ind. 251

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