In Re Moore

This is an application for a writ of habeas corpus to secure the release of petitioner from detention after a preliminary examination in the justice’s court upon a complaint charging him with the crime of selling intoxicating liquor in violation of what is generally known as the Wright Act [Stats. 1921, p. 79]. Petitioner was bound over to the superior court for Orange County, and he now seeks his discharge upon the ground that the order holding him to answer was made without reasonable or probable cause.

The testimony, as set out in the transcript, shows substantially the following: On November 13, 1924, the date of the alleged offense, the prosecuting witnesses, two men employed as “investigators” by an organization styling itself The Anti-Saloon League, met petitioner at a pool-hall in Huntington Beach. Two days previously these self-constituted “investigators,” endeavoring to ascertain what places therq were in Orange County where intoxicating liquors were being sold, sought an introduction to petitioner through an employee of the pool-hall. Upon that occasion the prosecuting witnesses asked petitioner if he could get them some liquor. Though he replied that he could get it…