Case ID: sw2d_1/html/1093-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "MARTIN, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

RICE v. STATE.
    (No. 11328.)
    Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    Jan. 18, 1928.
    Criminal law <3=»8I4(I7) — Where defendant, charged with transporting liquor, hid articles in brush where officers later found whisky, refusing charge on circumstantial evidence held error.
    Where defendant, charged with unlawfully transporting intoxicating liquor, was seen to leave automobile in which he was riding and to hide articles in brush by roadside, and officers later found whisky at that point, refusing charge on law.of circumstantial evidence hold, error.
    Commissioners’ Decision.
    Appeal from District Court, Johnson County; Irwin T. Ward, Judge.
    H. N. Rice was convicted of the unlawful transportation of intoxicating liquor, and he appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Jno. K. Russell, of Cleburne, and W. E. Myres, of Port Worth, for appellant.
    A. A. Dawson, State’s Atty., of Austin, for the State.
   MARTIN, J.

Offense, the unlawful transportation of intoxicating liquor; penalty, two years in the penitentiary.

Appellant and his companion, Rowe, were in a car in a public road near where officers were secreted in the brush. Mr. Rowe at that time alighted from the car, looked around for a few minutes, appellant drove the car on down the road a distance of about 150 yards from the officers, and Rowe there again alighted and took out of the car 12 half gallon jars of whisky and hid them in the brush on the north side of the road, the officers being on the south side. The car was driven off and subsequently the officers searched the brush and found 12 half gallon jars of whisky. It is insisted that these facts demanded a charge on circumstantial evidence.

We quote excerpts from the authorities as follows:

“There is positive testimony from Autry that while appellant was riding in a buggy along a public road he threw something from the buggy into a dry creek at a point near a bridge. Autry was not close enough to identify this object at the time it was thrown out but the discovery of the whisky at that point would be a circumstance indicating this was the object thrown from the buggy; if this were all the testimony upon that point the case would remain one of circumstantial evidence.” Bailey v. State, 97 Tex. Cr. R. 312, 260 S. W. 1057.

“The officer who first saw appellant in the grounds said he was ‘walking in the grounds from the entrance, * * * had a bundle under his arm, * * * it was a big bundle with a newspaper wrapped around it, * * * about the size of a gallon jug or jar.’ * * * In a moment or two the officer went to where the men had gone and found the three Mexicans with a gallon jug of whisky, and nearby lay a newspaper which looked as though it had been wrapped around something. Appellant told them it was his whisky, said he got it from a white man in a big automobile.” Rodriquez v. State, 100 Tex. Cr. R. 11, 271 S. W. 380.

The court charged upon circumstantial evidence, and, because the district attorney argued to the jury that the case was not one of circumstantial evidence and that the court did not believe it to be so, the case was reversed by this, court in an opinion by Justice Lattimore. Subsequently this court reversed 'the case of Kinslow v. State, 100 Tex. Cr. R. 140, 272 S. W. 468, upon the authority of the Rodriquez Case, above cited. We quote from the Kinslow Case:

“The record discloses that one of the state’s witnesses testified that, while he was about 200 yards away, he saw the defendant leave the house with his arm full of fruit jars containing whisky, and take them off about 50 or 75 yards from the house, and throw them in a hole of water, three of them, and then he and the sheriff raked the hole of water and got three, fruit jars full of whisky out of it. It was impossible for this witness to know this was whis-ky at so great a distance, and was assuming same to be whisky from subsequent results. We are of the opinion that, under the facts of this case, the court should have submitted a charge on circumstantial evidence. Rodriquez v. State, [100 Tex. Cr. R. 11] 271 S. W. 380.”

See, also, case of Chew v. State, 104 Tex. Cr. R. 417, 284 S. W. 559, for a state of facts somewhat similar to the instant case.

The officers testifying in this case, as in the Kinslow Case, could not have known at the distance they were that appellant’s companion had carried whisky and hidden it. That there was whisky being transported is deducible only from the circumstance of its later having been found in the brush.

We are not able to distinguish the facts of this case from those cited above and believe that, under these authorities, the issue was raised, and the' court’s action in refusing to give a charge on circumstantial evidence was error.

The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.

PER CURIAM. The foregoing opinion of the Commission of Appeals has been examined by the Judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals and approved by the court. 
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