Case Name: PUTMAN v. THE STATE
Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1925-01-15
Citations: 33 Ga. App. 357
Docket Number: 15997
Parties: PUTMAN v. THE STATE.
Judges: Luke and Bloodworlh, JJ., concur. Broyles, G. J., dissents.
Reporter: Georgia Appeals Reports
Volume: 33
Pages: 357–358

Head Matter:
15997.
PUTMAN v. THE STATE.
A conviction of an attempt to make whisky was not authorized by the evidence. (Broyles, C. J., dissents.)
Decided January 15, 1925.
Indictment for manufacture of liquor; from Murray superior court—Judge Tarver. September 27, 1924.
Huston Putman was indicted with his sons Ed and Oscar, and was found guilty of “an attempt to manufacture whisky.” The sons pleaded guilty. From the evidence it appeared that the sons lived with the father, and that a still was operated by the sons at a place in the woods, about a quarter of a mile from where they lived. A neighbor testified: “I went up to Mr. Putman’s (the defendant’s) home and asked him to have it [the still] moved, and he said he would when he could, and I says, Tf you can’t have it moved, I can,’ and he says, T want your friendship,’ and I says, Tf you want my friendship, keep that thing out from under my door;’ that he could run it under his own as long as he wanted to and I wouldn’t bother him, and he asked for a permit until the next morning at daylight to move it, and I went over there then and it was gone, but I don’t know who moved it. . . Mr. Put-man, the defendant, said he didn’t know whose still it was. . . The boys were down there at work. . . His boys were under age. . . He said the boys was running it, that it was not him, —said he had been quarreling with them about it, but he said he would move it. . . Mr. Putman never said whether he knowed about the still or not. . . I said, ‘What do you want to stick it under me for?’ And he says, ‘Uncle Bud, it was the boys. You know I would have more sense.’ I asked the boys what they were doing when I went up to it, and they said, ‘making syrup,’ they guessed.” The defendant, in his statement at the trial, said: “I’ll tell you how it was. My boys slipped out a half a bushel of meal and got out there with a little old outfit and tried to make some whisky, and Mr, Burkes told me about it, and I went and kicked it out and destroyed it, and gave them a whipping and sent them back to the house. I did not know anything about it, only the way they were acting.”
W. JE. & W. G. Mann, for plaintiff in error.
J. M. Lang, solicitor-general, contra.

Opinion:
Broyles, C. J.
The judgment of the majority of this court is that the record contains no evidence authorizing the verdict. The writer does not concur in that judgment.
Judgment reversed.
Luke and Bloodworlh, JJ., concur. Broyles, G. J., dissents.