Case ID: sw_268/html/0739-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "LATTIMORE, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BRAMLETT v. STATE.
    (No. 7320.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    Nov. 12, 1924.
    Rehearing Denied Feb. 18, 1925.)
    1. Intoxicating liquors <©=>202, 222 — Charge that liquor transported was not for defendant’s personal use unnecessary.
    Indictment for transporting need not charge that liquor was not for defendant’s personal use, or was transported for purpose of sale.
    2. Intoxicating liquors <©=239(2) — Charge to acquit, if liquor in defendant’s possession was for his own personal use, held not .warranted by evidence.
    Refused charge that, if liquor in defendant’s possession was for his own personal use, and not for sale, he should be acquitted of transporting, 'held not warranted by evidence.
    3. Criminal law <©=419, 420(10) — Testimony as to defendant’s statement that doctors told him to drink whisky, held hearsay.
    Testimony as to defendant’s statement to witness, on putting whisky in car, that doctors told him to drink it, held hearsay.
    4. Intoxicating liquors <©=138 — Transportation of liquor for personal use no defense.
    That one transporting liquor had it for his own personal use, and not for sale, is no defense, though he was going to another state.
    On Motion for Rehearing.
    5. Criminal law <©=1144(14) — Charge given presumed satisfactory, in absence, of complaint or request for special charge.
    •In absence of complaint of charge given, or of refusal of some special charge presenting accused’s contention, appellate court can only conclude that charge given was satisfactory.
    6. Criminal law <©=363 — Hearsay may he part of res gestse.
    Hearsay may be part of res gestae under some circumstances.
    Appeal from District Court, Brown County ; J. O. Woodward, Judge.
    W. W. Bramlett was convicted of transporting intoxicating liquor, and appeals.
    Affirmed.
    T. R. Mears, of Gatesville, for appellant.
   LATTIMORE, J.

Appellant was convicted in the district court of Brown county of the unlawful transportation of intoxicating liquor, and Ms punishment fixed at two years in the penitentiary.

The, court did not err in refusing to quash the indictment for its failure to charge that the liquor was not transported for the personal use of appellant. Copeland v. State, 92 Tex. Cr. R. 554, 244 S. W. 818. Nor was it necessary for the indictment to charge that the liquor was transported for the purpose of sale. Stringer v. State, 92 Tex. Cr. R. 46, 241 S. W. .159. Appellant was arrested in Brown county in possession of some 3½ gallons of whisky. He did not take the stand in. his own behalf, nor did he introduce a single witness.

Appellant complains of the refusal of a special charge in which he sought to have the jury told that, if he had in his possession the intoxicating liquor as charged in the indictment, but same was for his own personal use, and not for sale, he should be acquitted. We do not think the charge called for by the evidence, nor that it presents a correct proposition of law. Under the unquestioned testimony,- appellant was transporting said 3½ gallons of'intoxicating liquor through Brown county at the time he was arrested. There appears a statement made by a state witness, who was accompanying appellant on his trip, who stated on cross-examination that, as appellant was passing through Hamilton county, going toward Brownwood, he got out of the car at a certain place, and got the whisky, and put it in the car, and that he told witness that he had rheumatism of the kidneys, and that the doctors told him to drink it. Neither appellant nor any other person testified that in fact he was afflicted with any disease, nor is it made to appear that in any kind of good faith he needed the application of liquor or anything else for any physical ailment.

The testimony as to the statement made by appellant to the witness Pruitt was hearsay. It is not the law of this state that, one may transport liquor, and escape the consequences of such violation by claiming that he had it for his own personal use, and not for sale.

Appellant complains of the refusal of the trial court to submit to the jury an instruction that, if he was going to some point in New Mexico on the trip in question, he would have the right to carry said intoxicating liquor for his own personal use. There is no such exception in our statute, and we know of no legal permission to so transport such liquor.

Binding no error in the record, the judgment of the trial court will be affirmed.

On Motion for Rehearing.

The facts are stated in the original opinion. No exception was taken to the charge of the court on the ground that it did not submit the theory of transportation of intoxicating liquor for medicinal purposes. No special charge was asked submitting said issue to the jury. The only special charge which was asked, complaint of the refusal of which is urged, was one asking that the jury be told that appellant had the right to transport intoxicating liquor for his own use. As stated by us in the original opinion, this is not the law. In the absence of some complaint of the charge as given, or of the refusal of some special charge presenting what the accused deems a correct presentation of the law, this court has no option other than to conclude that the charge on the point as given was satisfactory.

Appellant indulges in much discussion of the statement in our opinion that the testimony of the man who was accompanying appellant at the time he found the liquor by the roadside, as to what was said by appellant, was hearsay. There is no doubt but that it Vas. It was not rejected by the court for that reason or for any other. Hearsay may be a part of the res gestae under some circumstances. The testimony under discussion may have been admitted by the trial court with this fact in mind. However that may be, it does not operate to change or affect the settled legal proposition that one who is dissatisfied with the charge of the court must except to same, and in most cases must present a special charge correcting the error excepted to. As stated above, neither of these things was done by appellant.

The motion for rehearing will be overruled. 
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