## Facts

- Erving Mixer worked as a driver for a common carrier delivering packages.
- A customer tendered a barrel described as a “sugar barrel” for delivery into Lynn, Massachusetts.
- The barrel was not marked as containing intoxicating liquor as required by Massachusetts liquor laws.
- The barrel in fact contained intoxicating liquor, and Lynn was a “no-license” municipality where liquor licenses were not granted.
- The prosecution proceeded on the basis that Mixer had no knowledge or reason to suspect the barrel contained liquor.
- A Massachusetts statute (St. 1878, c. 207) restricted transporting intoxicating liquor into no-license municipalities and imposed punishment for “wilful” violations.

## Issues

1. Whether the liquor-transport statute required proof that a carrier’s employee knew, intended, or had reasonable cause to believe that the goods transported were intoxicating liquor.
2. Whether the statute could impose criminal liability for transporting intoxicating liquor into a no-license municipality even when the transporter lacked knowledge or suspicion of the liquor’s presence.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed the conviction.
- The court held that a common carrier or its employee may be convicted for transporting intoxicating liquor into a no-license municipality even without knowledge or reason to suspect the package contained liquor.
- The trial judge properly refused to instruct the jury that lack of knowledge or suspicion required acquittal.

## Legal Principles

- A legislature may create a regulatory (public-welfare) offense in which the prohibited act alone completes the crime, without requiring proof of traditional mens rea as to certain attendant facts.
- For statutes aimed at suppressing clandestine liquor traffic, liability may attach to carriers for transporting intoxicating liquor into no-license municipalities regardless of the transporter’s actual knowledge of the contents.
- Use of terms such as “wilfully” in a statutory scheme does not necessarily require proof of knowledge of the specific prohibited circumstance when the legislative design targets effective enforcement of the prohibited act.
- In assessing such statutes, courts may consider that carriers can protect themselves through practical measures such as inspecting packages, refusing carriage, or conditioning acceptance.

## Conclusion

The court treated the unlawful transportation restriction as a strict-liability measure as to the nature of the goods, sustaining Mixer’s conviction because the statute’s enforcement purpose would be defeated if carriers could avoid liability by claiming ignorance of package contents.


Commonwealth v. Mixer, 207 Mass. 141, 93 N.E. 249 (1910)