Case ID: ala-app_10/html/0212-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WALKER, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Lorena v. The State.
    
      'Violating Prohibition Law.
    
    (Decided May 14, 1914.
    65 South. 313.)
    
      Intoxicating Liquors; Possession; Evidence. — -The evidence examined and held insufficient to connect defendant with the charge of having in possession or keeping for sale, intoxicating liquors or beverages contrary to law.
    Appeal from Chilton Circuit Court.
    Heard before Hon. W. W. Pearson.
    Mike Lorena was convicted of violating the prohibition law, and he appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    The evidence tended to show that, in the depot of McArthur Bros., six barrels containing liquid testified by some to be whisky was found consigned to Mike Lorena; that the sheriff went np with a search warrant, seized the barrels, and arrested defendant; and that defendant made no claim to the barrels. Witness simply saw Mike Lorena’s name on the barrels, and got a copy of the freight bill, and this was the only means of knowing whether or not the prohibited liquors belonged to the defendant. Defendant thereupon moved to exclude the testimony, and requested the affirmative charge.
    D. J. Flummer, for appellant.
    No brief reached the Reporter.
   WALKER, P. J.

The charge against the defendant (appellant here) was that he “did sell, offer for sale, or had in possession for sale, or otherwise disposed of, spirituous, vinous, or malt liquors, contrary to law.” We are of opinion that the evidence offered by the state had no tendency to prove the commission of either of the offenses which were charged in the alternative, and that the motion made by the defendant, when the state rested, to exclude the testimony which it had offered should have been granted. There was no evidence tending to connect the defendant with the keeping or possession of the whisky which the testimony for the state tended to prove was found in the warehouse of McArthur Bros. Nor was this deficiency in the evidence subsequently removed, so as to cure the error committed by the court in overruling the motion to exclude.

Reversed and remanded.