Case ID: ga-app_36/html/0215-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Broyles, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

17702.
    Chastain v. The State.
    Decided December 14, 1926.
    Possessing liquor; from city court of Tliomasville — Judge,MacIntyre. October 9, 1926.
    W. E. Chastain was convicted on the charge of having had possession and control of intoxicating liquor. From the evidence it appeared that he and his son Henry lived on different sides of a public road and about half a mile apart on the same plantation, and that officers went to their homes at the same time in a search for liquor, but found none. A jug which smelled as if it had had whisky in it was found under circumstances stated as follows: One of the officers testified: “Mr. Cobb [the other officer] left me at Henry’s place with Henry, who was.at home when we got there, and went on across the field and across the road to the home of the defendant W. E. Chastain. I saw the defendant come out of his house, walk out, and meet Mr. Cobb at the fence, where they had some conversation.' Mr. Cobb went across the field. I hid in some bushes not far from Henry’s house and saw the old man come across'the road and go to Henry’s house. He and Henry went back together to the old man’s house and stood there near the lot a few minutes and talked, after they liad both looked around for a minute or two. The old man raised his hand and pointed, and Henry went out in the potato patch to a point about 100 yards back of the old man’s house and picked up a jug and started to run across the field with it. . . There was a track leading out from the rear of the defendant’s house to where this jug was that Henry picked up in the potato patch. . . Henry said to me in the presence of the defendant and Mr. Cobb that the jug and its contents belonged to him and that his father had no knowledge of its being there . . , that the potato patch was his, and he was cultivating that part of the farm, that his father had nothing to do with it. I do not know who owns the crops or who planted or cultivated them,. . . The defendant did not go to where the jug was picked up; . . he raised his hand and pointed in the direction of where Henry went and got the jug. The jug was broken by Henry, but I smelled whisky in the corn patch and on the pieces of jug which he broke. . . There were several tracks leading from defendant’s house across potato rows 100 yards to where Henry Chastain found the jug.” Cobb’s testimony was in substantial accord with the foregoing testimony. The defendant, in his statement at the trial, said that he knew nothing about the jug or as to there being any whisky on the premises, that when he went to Henry’s place as stated by the witness, it was to see what the trouble was, and that he did not point to any particular place.
    
      Intoxicating Liquors,. 33 C. J. p. 761, n. 53; p. 762, n. 57.
   Broyles, C. J.

The evidence tending to connect the accused with the offense charged was wholly circumstantial, and was not sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis save that of his guilt.

Judgment reversed.

Luke, J., concurs. Bloodworth, J,, absent on account of illness.

Titus & Dekle, for plaintiff in error,

cited 34 Ga. App. 61.

J. Baird Edwards, solicitor, contra.