Case Name: Cowart v. The State
Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1914-07-07
Citations: 14 Ga. App. 763
Docket Number: 5757
Parties: Cowart v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Georgia Appeals Reports
Volume: 14
Pages: 763–763

Head Matter:
5757.
Cowart v. The State.
Decided July 7, 1914.
Indictment for sale of liquor; from Tattnall superior court— Judge Sheppard. April 15, 1914.
The testimony against the accused was given by two persons. Dennis Cowart testified; “I gave him $1.25 in cash for one quart of rye whisky, and he was gone about long enough to go to his house and back, and he brought me the liquor.” Joshua Collins made substantially the same statement, and said: “I went to him to get the whisky and he-told me he knew where he could get it.” A witness for the defendant testified: “I was with the defendant both times, . . when Joshua Collins and Dennis Cowart gave him-the money to get the whisky that they have just sworn about. I went with the defendant each time, and he went down to the branch back of the gin-house and bought the whisky for them from a negro named Tom. Daughtry.. He took the money from them and bought the whisky for them with their money, and delivered the whisky to them, and they got him to do that for them.” The defendant, in his statement at the trial, said that the whisky, he delivered to Dennis Cowart and Joshua Collins was not his whisky, and that he did not sell whisky to them, but each time acted only as agent for them in buying the whisky. There was no testimony in rebuttal of the defendant’s statement, or of the testimony of his witness.
H. H, Elders, for plaintiff in error.
N. J. Norman, solicitor-general, contra.

Opinion:
Roan, J.
On the trial of one charged with the offense of selling intoxicating liquors, proof that the accused received money from another person, accompanied by a request to procure whisky for liim, and thereafter went off, and soon returned and delivered to him the whisky requested, would cast on the accused the onus of showing where, how, and from whom he got the whisky. This burden would be successfully carried by the accused if, in corroboration of his own statement, he proved by an unimpeached witness that he had in fact bought the whisky from another person. Bray v. Commerce, 5 Ga. App. 605 (63 S. E. 590). If there was any evidence in the record tending to impeach this witness, a question of fact for the jury to settle would be presented; and in that event the verdict should stand, but following the decision in Bray v. Commerce, supra, as this court is compelled to do, the judgment must be reversed. See Grant v. State, 87 Ga. 265 (13 S. E. 265); Mack v. State, 116 Ga. 546 (42 S. E. 776) ; Gaskins v. State, 127 Ga. 51 (55 S. E. 1045) ; Davis v. State, 13 Ga. App. 142 (78 S. E. 866).
Judgment reversed.