Case Name: Buck Harvey v. State of Mississippi
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1909-03
Citations: 95 Miss. 601
Docket Number: 
Parties: Buck Harvey v. State of Mississippi.
Judges: 
Reporter: Mississippi Reports
Volume: 95
Pages: 601–606

Head Matter:
Buck Harvey v. State of Mississippi.
49 South. 268.]
1. Criminal Law and Procedure. Intoxicating liquors. Sales. Code 1906, § 1762. Evidence. More than one sale.
Code 1906, § 1762, .authorizing the state in prosecutions for the unlawful sales of intoxicating liquors to introduce evidence showing more than one sale, does not render admissible evidence of sales the .prosecution of which is barred by .limitation, nor evidence of other sales not sufficiently certain to justify a conviction.
2. Instructions. Circuit court. Practice. When to he acted upon. When read to jury.
It is reversible error for a trial court to require tbe argument of a case to- tbe jury to precede action on instructions asked, and it is also error to refuse to allow tbe instructions to be read to tbe jury before argument concluded. Mayes, J., in concurring opinion.
Hrom tbe circuit court of Covington county.
Hon. Robert L. Bullard, Judge.
Harvey, appellant, was indicted and tried for and convicted of unlawfully selling intoxicating liquors, and appealed to the supreme court. Tbe facts of which the opinions of the judges are predicated are sufficiently stated in them respectively.
W. U. Mounger Watlcins & Watlcins, for appellant.
Appellant was convicted upon the testimony of a negro, Ainsworth, to the effect that be bad purchased whiskey from tbe defendant on tbe 5th. day of June, 1905, or thereabout and at other time, without specifying when and where. The state should have confined tbe proof to tbe sale testified to- by Ainsworth on tbe 5th. day of June, 1905.
If tbe state bad tbe right to introduce tbe evidence of other sales, than that testified about by Ainsworth on the 5th. day of June, 1905, then in that event, tbe time and place of such sales should have been specified. Hnder tbe rulings of the trial court it did not malee any difference whether tbe sale was within two years of tbe indictment, whether tbe sale was in Covington county or in Smith county, in Texas or Mississippi, if be bad ever sold whiskey to Ainsworth be was guilty. If it be admissible at all in this case to prove more than one sale, it must have been within two years of the indictment. Thomas v. Ya-zoo City, ante, p. 395, 48 South. 821. Tbe court below even refused to give tbe defendant an instruction that the jury must believe that the sale- occurred prior to- tbe indictment. After making all these errors against tbe defendant tbe court compelled counsel for defendant to argue tbe case before it passed upon the instructions and refused to allow defendant’s counsel to see the instructions until after they had argued the ease.
George Butter, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.
Under Code 1906, § 1762 the State was not confined to any particular sale. Thomas v. Yazoo City, ante, p. 395, 48 South. 821.
It is true that the court says in Montgomery v. State, 85' Miss. 330, 37 South. 835, that the correct practice under our system is for the court to pass on all instruction asked on both sides before the argument to the jury and this doctrine was re-affirmed in the case of Boyhiñ v. State, 86 Miss. 48l, 38 South. 725.
There is nothing, however, in Code 1906, § 793, that requires the instructions to be given before the argument is begun and the practice in a great many of the states is to charge as to the law of the case after the arguments have been completed. No one gets any advantage b'y this procedure, the jury is not misled by comments of counsel as to what the instructions mean. In this manner the instructions appear to be the law of the case as given by the court, and not the discourse of counsel for either party.

Opinion:
Smith, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court.
Appellant was convicted in the court below on an indictment charging him with the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors. One such sale was shown by the evidence of the witness Ainsworth, who was then permitted to testify, over the objection of appellant, that he had been purchasing whisky from appellant prior to the time of said sale, without specifying any particular sale, or when or where the same took place. This action of the pourt, among other things, is assigned as error.
There was a sharp conflict in the evidence. It is true that under section 1762 of the Code of 1906 the state, on the trial of a case of this character, is not confined to proof of a single sale; but, if proof of other sales is made, it must appear that they are not barred by the statute of limitations; and they must be proven with the same degree of certainty that the one sale necessary to convict must be proven.
The admission of this testimony was, therefore, fatal error, and the judgment is reversed and case remanded.