Case ID: sw_272/html/0177-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "BAKER, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ADAMS v. STATE.
    (No. 8784.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    May 13, 1925.)
    1. Intoxicating liquors <§=17 — Dean Law is constitutional.
    The Dean Law (Vernon’s Ann. Pen. Code Supp. 1922, art. 588% et seq.) is constitutional.
    2. Intoxicating liquors <§=236(7) — Evidence-insufficient to support conviction for possession for sale.
    In prosecution for unlawfully possessing for sale whisky found in house supposed to be defendant’s during his absence, evidence helé insufficient to sustain conviction.
    Commissioners’ Decision.
    Appeal from District Court, Jefferson ■ County; Geo. C. O’Brien, Judge.
    A. J. Adams was .convicted of unlawfully possessing whisky for purpose of sale, and •he appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Howth, Adams, O’Fiel & Hart, of Beaumont, and E. T. Branch, of Houston, for appellant.
    Tom Garrard, State’s Atty., and Grover C. Morris, Asst. State’s Atty., both of Austin, for the State.
   BAKER, J.

Appellant was tried and convicted in the Fifty-Eighth .district. court of Jefferson county for the offense of unlawfully possessing whisky for the purpose of sale, and his punishment assessed at two years’ confinement in the penitentiary.

In this appeal the appellant attacks the constitutionality of the Dean Law (Vernon’s Ann. Pen. Code Supp. 1922, art. 588% et seq.); calls in question the sufficiency of the testimony; and raises other questions which are unnecessary for the court to consider at this time.

This court has ruled against the attack made by the appellant relative to the constitutionality of the Dean Law in the case of Manos v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 263 S. W. 310, and in Goforth v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 269 S. W. 98.

The state witnesses testified to having found whisky in the house and some in the yard of the defendant, and they saw in the house a woman who said her name was Mrs. Adams, and a man they were told was the brother-in-law of the defendant, and those parties were in the house during the search and the finding of the whisky on the premises in question, and, after they had completed the search, the defendant drove up. On cross-examination these witnesses testified that of their own knowledge they did 'not know who owned the house or who had possession of the house, or to whom the whisky belonged. This was practically and in effect the force of the testimony relied upon by the state for a conviction in this case. The defendant did not take the stand, and produced no testimony upon the trial.

Upon this testimony the state had as strong or stronger case against the man and woman in the house where the whisky was found than it had against the defendant; and, after a careful consideration of the entire testimony, we áre forced to conclude that it is not sufficient to sustain a conviction in , this case, and the judgment of the trial court is reversed and remanded.

PER CURIAM. The foregoing opinion of the Commission of Appeals has been examined by the judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals and approved by the court.