Case ID: ga-app_36/html/0576-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Bloodworth, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

17787.
    Dillard v. The State.
    Decided March 8, 1927.
    Indictment for possession of liquor; from Whitñeld superior court — Judge Tarver. November 8, 1926.
    A deputy sheriff testified, that, having got word that “they were selling liquor around the negro hall,” he and two other officers watched the hall for some time; that he saw negroes going from the hall to the house of Zora Dillard, the defendant, and back to the hall; that he saw two Avhite men sitting in front of Zora Dillard’s house, and saAV them go up to a ear that came up, and Avhen the officers came up on them they ran; that some liquor was found just inside the fence of Zora’s yard; some was “scattered around there;” some was “in the alley,” and a part of a jug was just in front of Zora’s house, which fronts “right on the street;” that “the white men threw the liquor away and ran,” and that he, the witness, did not see Zora with any liquor. Henry Eeece testified: “Me and Porter Eooker stopped in front of . . the colored barber-shop and we saw Zora Dillard coming up the street. Porter said, ‘What you got?’ And Zora said, ‘I ain’t got nothing. We might find something.’ Hé got in the car with us and we drove on down the street, . . and we saw two white men. When we stopped the car these white men came up, and we said we would take a half. Just as they started to hand it to us the law came up, and we let the liquor fall before they gave it to us. . . I didn’t see Zora Dillard with any liquor. The white men had the liquor, and they threw it down and ran when the law came up. No, sir, us niggers didn’t have any liquor.” Porter Eooker testified to the same effect. An officer testified that the officers searched the defendant’s house, but did not find any liquor. The defendant, in his statement at the trial, said that he did not have anything to do with any liquor, and did not know anything about the liquor found near the fence; that two white men, one of whom he named, had some liquor there, and they ran off “when the law come up.” There was no additional evidence as to possession of liquor.
    
      Intoxicating Liquors, 33 O. J. p. 761, n. 53.
   Bloodworth, J.

The evidence is not sufficient to support the verdict, -and the court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial.

Judgment reversed.

Broyles, G. J., and Ltike, J., concur.

William M. & Gordon Mann, for plaintiff in error.