Case ID: sw_231/html/0109-01.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

CHANDLER v. STATE.
    (No. 6259.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    May 19, 1921.)
    1. Criminal law ®=o200 (4) — Conviction of unlawful sale of liquor will not preclude conviction of having possession.
    The conviction of the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors will not preclude a conviction for unlawful possession of the same liquor,' and this is so notwithstanding the two prosecutions were based on the same transaction.
    2. Criminal law <s=507(l), 510 — Purchaser of liquor is an accomplice^ and testimony must be corroborated.
    A purchaser of intoxicating liquor is an accomplice and a conviction against defendant who delivered the liquor cannot be based solely on his testimony, even though the sale was made by defendant’s son, defendant delivering the liquor.
    Appeal from District Court, Kaufman County; Joel R. Bond, Judge.
    John Chandler was convicted of being in possession of intoxicating liquor not for medicinal, sacramental, scientific, or mechanical purposes, and lie appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Wynne & Wynne, of Kaufman, Miller & Miller, of Athens, and Ross Huffmaster, of Kaufman, for appellant.
    R. I-I. Hamilton, Asst Atty. Gen., for the State.
   HAWKINS, J.

Appellant was convicted of being in the possession of intoxicating liquor, not for medicinal, sacramental, scientific, or mechanical purposes.

Only one witness testified upon the trial, and his evidence is here copied in full:

“My name is Beverly Jones. I live down near Kemp, on the farm. I am 20 years of age. I remember having soime transaction with Clyde Chandler and John Chandler along about the 15th day of September, or somewhere about that time. I bought the whisky from Clyde in Kemp, and paid him the money, and went out and got the whisky. I bought a gallon, and paid him $7.50. He did not deliver the whisky. I went out to John Chandler’s; I went out and told him (Mr. Chandler) that he said give me the whisky. Mr. Chandler said all right, and went and got the whisky, and brought it to me. He gave me a gallon. He got it back in the barn somewhere. I drank some of it, and it had a ‘kick.’ If I had drunk enough, it would have made me drunk.”

Appellant raises the question of former conviction, and urges that, because he was convicted for the sale of this identical liquor to Beverly Jones, he cannot also be convicted for having possession of the same liquor. This contention has been decided adversely to appellant in cause No. 6265, John Chandler v. State, 231 S. W. 108, in an opinion delivered May 11, 1921. The exact question was there presented, and Presiding Judge Morrow uses the following terse statement:

“The offenses are not the same, nor do they consist in the same act.”

The court was requested to charge the jury to return a verdict of “not guilty,” because of insufficient evidence. Jones purchased the whisky from Clyde Chandler, but took delivery of it from appellant. The purchaser became an accomplice, as held in Franklin v. State, 227 S. W. 486, and Robert v. State, 228 S. W. 230. When the taint of accomplice attaches, it remains during the dealing with the property, the purchase of which produced the taint. It must indeed have been an unsatisfactory sale to Jones until it was consummated by the delivery of the whisky by appellant; and, although appellant was charged in this case with “possession,” and not the “sale,” Jones was none the less an accomplice. No. 6263, John Chandler v. State, 231 S. W. 107, decided May 11, 1921, in an opinion by Judge Lattimore, expressly settles the question.

There being no testimony other than of Jones, an accomplice, the refusal of the court to give the requested peremptory charge was error.

The judgment of the trial court is reversed, and the cause remanded. 
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