Case ID: sw_270/html/0852-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "HAWKINS, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SIMMONS v. STATE.
    (No. 8814.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    April 1, 1925.)
    I. Criminal law <&wkey;784(l) — Instruction that state relied on circumstantial evidence held, proper under the evidence.
    In liquor prosecution, instruction that state relied on circumstantial evidence held proper under the evidence.
    2.,Intoxicating liquors <&wkey;>236(7) — Evidence held to justify conviction for possession of intoxicating liquors.
    Evidence held to justify conviction for possession of intoxicating liquor for purpose of sale.
    Appeal from District Court, Newton County; ' V. H. Stark, Judge.
    Fred Simmons was convicted of possessing intoxicating liquors for purpose of sale, and he appeals.
    Affirmed.
    Tom Garrard, State’s Atty., and Grover C. Morris, Asst. State’s Atty., both of Austin, for the State.
   HAWKINS, J.

Conviction is for the possession of intoxicating liquor for the purpose of sale; punishment, one year in the penitentiary.

No objection was made to the charge of the court, and no bills of exception appear in the record save one raising the question of the insufficiency of the evidence.

An officer with a 'search warrant went to appellant’s premises. He found in a chicken yard which joined the yard of appellant’s dwelling house a 50-gallon barrel of corn mash buried. The top of the barrel was about a foot under the ground with tin over it to keep the dirt out. Under the dwelling house was found a 50-pound lard can with a lid over it and a hole in the lid. A pipe and cooling trough were found in the corner of the yard to the dwelling house. Near the back gate in a “little clay bole” a coil was found. From a small boy of appellant’s the officer received information which caused him to follow a trail out the back way from the dwelling house through a cane patch about 100 yards from the house where he found a 2-gallon jug of homemade whisky. The defendant was not at home at the time. He was found that night some 12 or 13 miles from there, at what is called the “Kirby Camp.” He was sitting by a pine knot fire where there were some half dozen negroes. He had been at home a few days before the search. No one lived at the place except the defendant, his wife and nine year old boy. Defendant denied having used the equipment found at his place in making whis-ky, or of having placed the jug of whisky at the point where it was found by the officer.

The court properly instructed the jury that the case was one in which the state relied upon circumstantial evidence. We do not feel called upon to disturb the finding of the jury, believing the evidence authorized the conclusion reflected by the verdict.

The judgment is ordered affirmed.