State v. Williams
Ohio Court of Appeals
115 N.E.2d 36 (1952)
- Written by Angela Patrick, JD
Facts
Williams (defendant) was a truck driver. Williams drove to the Cold Creek Fish Company, where the company’s employees loaded 63 boxes of fish onto the truck. Each box weighed approximately 100 pounds, and the fish inside the boxes were covered in ice. Williams never inspected the boxes. The papers Williams received for the shipment said only that the boxes contained “2500 cat.” While driving to deliver the fish, Williams was stopped by a state game official. The official inspected the shipment and discovered that 25 boxes contained catfish that were shorter than the legal length limit. Williams was criminally charged with 25 counts of illegally possessing undersized catfish, which was a strict-liability crime that had no intent requirement and required only a showing of physical possession of illegal fish. Williams was convicted of 3 counts, but the other 22 counts were stayed while Williams was allowed to appeal the initial convictions. On appeal, Williams argued that he could not be held criminally liable for possessing undersized fish because he did not know and could not have known that the boxes contained undersized fish.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Fess, J.)
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