Case ID: sc_143/html/0504-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Blease.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

12386
    THE STATE v. McKENZIE
    (141 S. E., 895)
    Criminal Law — Refusal to Permit Witness to Answer Question Whether he Received Reports About Another Witness held Proper, Answer Thereto Being Hearsay. — In prosecution for violating the Prohibition Law, where witness testified defendant brought liquor to his house and left it there for safekeeping, refusal to permit defendant’s counsel to ask magistrate, testifying as State witness, whether he ever received reports about first witness being in the liquor business, was proper, since answer thereto would have been hearsay.
    Before Johnson, J., Jasper, June, 1927.
    Affirmed.
    Lawrence McKenzie was convicted of violating the Prohibition Law, and he appeals.
    Appeal dismissed.
    
      Mr. PI. Klugh Purdy, for appellant,
    cites: As to interrogation of witness: 2 S. E., 108.
    
      Solicitor Randolph Murdaugh, for respondent,
    cites: Only general reputation of witness can be inquired into, not particular facts or incidents: 77 S. E., 713 ; 68 S. C., 470. Impeachment of witness: 2 Mills Const., 171; 40 Cyc., 2615; 77 S. W., 801.
    March 1, 1928.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Mr. Justice Blease.

Lawrence McKenzie appeals to this Court from his conviction and sentence in the Court of General Sessions of Jasper County on a charge of violating the Prohibition Law.

The one exception relates to the refusal of the presiding Judge, Hon. J. Hemy Johnson, to allow a witness for the State to answer a question put to him by the appellant’s attorney on cross-examination.

One Daniel Foy, cólored, testified that the defendant brought certain alcoholic liquor to Eoy’s house and left it there for safe-keeping. When Magistrate Browning was testifying as a witness for the State, appellant’s counsel asked him this question: “Did you ever receive any reports about this negro (Daniel Foy) about his being in the liquor business?” The witness was not permitted to answer, the trial Judge ruling that the answer would be “hearsay.” And we think the ruling of the Court was correct.

There is an appeal on the part of the State from the order of the presiding Judge settling the case, but it is not necessary to pass upon this appeal.

The judgment of this Court is that the appeal of McKenzie be dismissed.

Mr. Chile Justice Watts and Messrs. Justices Cothran, Stabler and Carter concur.