Case Name: Willie Wales v. The State
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1919-10-29
Citations: 86 Tex. Crim. 183
Docket Number: No. 5503
Parties: Willie Wales v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Criminal Reports
Volume: 86
Pages: 183–187

Head Matter:
Willie Wales v. The State.
No. 5503.
Decided October 29, 1919.
Rehearing denied January 21, 1920.
1. —Selling and Procuring Intoxicating Liquors to Soldiers in the United States Army.
Where, upon trial under the Act o£ the fourth called session of th© Thirty-fifth Legislature, making it unlawful under section 1 of said Act for any person directly or indirectly, to knowingly purchase for or to procure for or to sell, give, or deliver to, or cause to be given, or delivered to, any person engaged or enlisted in the military or naval forces of the United States or any of the associates of the United States in the present war with Germany, any spirituous, vinous or malt liquors or medicated bitters capable of producing intoxication, he shall be guilty of an offense, etc., the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction, the judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded.
2. —Same—Rehearing—Procuring Intoxicants—United States Soldi®
Where the State contended in its motion for rehearing that the judgment should be affirmed on the basis that defendant was convicted for pro curing intoxicants for a United States service man, and not for giving or selling, held, that the evidence would not support the conviction under this phase of the case.
3.—Same—Definition of Procuring—Delivery—Insufficiency of the Evidence.
Under this statute a party cannot be charged with procuring whisky for another if he owned it and had already procured it, as the idea of procuring necessarily conveys and carries with it the idea that the thing procured must be gotten from some one other than the procurer; besides, there must be delivery in some such way that the service man received the intoxicant or it is placed where he can get it, and the evidence does not sustain the conviction under this phase of the case.
Appeal from the District Court of Galveston. Tried below before . the Hon. Robt. G. Street, judge.
Appeal from a conviction of unlawfully selling, procuring, etc., intoxicating liquors to United States soldiers; penalty, two years imprisonment in the penitentiary.
The opinion states the case.
Fuller & Brady, for appellant.
On question of insufficiency of the evidence: Lane v. State, 49 Texas Crim. Rep., 335; White v. State, 47 id., 551.
Alvin M. Osley, Assistant Attorney General, Chas H. Theobald, County Attorney Galveston County, for the State.

Opinion:
DAVIDSON, Presiding Judge.
Appellant was indicted under the statute which prohibits the selling or giving of intoxicating liquors to soldiers, marines and others in the service of the United States government. The indictment is prolific in allegations and covers apparently every clause of the statute.
The case as made by the State is through the witness Brent, who is a negro policeman or detective in the City of Galveston. He says on Market Street between 25th or 26th Street he saw soldiers and appellant near by. Finally one of the soldiers had a conversation with appellant. Brent became interested and began watching their movements. The soldiers and appellant separated. There were two other soldiers or marines near by who went around the corner of the block. The soldier who was talking with .appellant separated from him and went to a door or an opening into a wall at the foot of a flight of steps and stood there. It was about 7 o 'clock in the evening or little after the electric lights had been turned on. Appellant disappeared around th.e corner. Brent followed him. He says after watching him for some time appellant obtained a ladder and ascended to a window at the rear of one of the buildings and went through the window and he could see nothing further of appellant at that time. He then went back and took his station where he originally stood, and later saw appellant a few feet up this flight of steps handing the soldier below him a bottle which he thought was a pint bottle; that it had some fluid in it of a brown color. -The soldier left and joined the other two soldiers. They proceeded down the street. He watched them until they went into a cigar and fruit stand; that appellant finally made his appearance, at the same point, and went in where they were. He followed and noticed that one of the soldiers gave appellant a torn two dollar bill. When this occurred appellant reached down to his hip pocket and partially withdrew from it a flask of whisky. Upon seeing Brent he returned the whisky to his pocket. The soldiers went away and Brent arrested appellant. Appellant's testimony denied these transactions, and the fruit vender testified that he was present all the time that Brent said these matters were occurring and that such things did not occur either as to the money, or the conversation of the soldiers, or as to the attempt of appellant to get whisky from his pocket. This is substantially the case on the main facts. In addition, however, we may state that Brent was asked what the bottle contained that he saw appellant give the soldier on the flight of steps. He said he did not know, or anything about it more than he just saw the bottle pass. The distance between himself and this transaction is not stated, but it was the width of the street.
Taking this case from any standpoint, there is not sufficient evidence to show that appellant let the soldier have whisky. At the fruit stand there was no whisky passed. He may have intended, under Brent's testimony, to let the soldier have the pint of whisky he says appellant had in his pocket. Brent prevented it if such was his purpose. The transaction on the flight of steps is not of such importance and the testimony is not of such value as to indicate that it wás whisky so as to justify a conviction from that view point. It could Lave or may have been whisky, but the presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt are in favor of defendant, and under the mies of circumstantial evidence it must be sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except the guilt of defendant.
There is quite a lot of other testimony in the case bearing upon collateral matters, the impeachment of Brent, etc., but these are not discussed.
Believing that the evidence is not sufficient to justify the conviction, the judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.