Case Name: Cornelius HILL, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1956-03-14
Citations: 290 S.W.2d 677
Docket Number: No. 28165
Parties: Cornelius HILL, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 290
Pages: 677–680

Head Matter:
Cornelius HILL, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
No. 28165.
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
March 14, 1956.
Rehearing Denied May 9, 1956.
C. C. Divine, Houston, for appellant.
Dan Walton, Dist. Atty., Eugene Brady and Thomas D. White, Asst. Dist. Attys., Houston, Leon B. Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

Opinion:
MORRISON, Presiding Judge.
The offense is the sale of whiskey in a wet area without having procured a permit from the Texas Liquor Control Board, with prior offenses of like character alleged to enhance the punishment; the punishment, one year in jail and a fine of $1,000.
An employee of the Liquor Control Board testified that he went to a certain address in the City of Houston after midnight on the day charged in the information and there purchased from the appellant two half pints of whiskey, that he returned approximately one-half hour later and purchased still another one-half pint.
His testimony was corroborated by Police Officer Farris.
The prior convictions were established, and the appellant was identified as being the person therein convicted.
The appellant did not testify and offered no evidence in his own behalf.
Appellant contends that the court erred in admitting into evidence over his objection an affidavit of Coke R. Stevenson, Jr., Administrator of the Texas Liquor Control Board, in which he certifies that he is the custodian of the records of said Board and that he had searched the same and found no record of a license to sell alcoholic beverages having ever been issued to the appellant.
The objection was that he was denied the right to cross-examine the witness. In Fite v. State, 158 Tex.Cr.R. 611, 259 S.W.2d 198, this Court held that the provisions of Article 3731a, Vernon's Ann.Civ. St., were applicable to criminal cases.
Section 5 of said Act provides:
"A written statement signed by an officer having the custody of an official record, or by his deputy, that after diligent search no record or entry of a specified tenor is found to exist in the records of his office, accompanied by a certificate as above provided, is admissible as evidence that the records of his office contain no such record or entry."
No objection was made that the terms of Section 3 of said Act had not been complied withj and therefore we are not called upon to pass upon the question of surprise.
Finding no reversible error, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.