Case Name: CAMPBELL v. STATE
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1926-02-03
Citations: 280 S.W. 778
Docket Number: No. 9573
Parties: CAMPBELL v. STATE.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter
Volume: 280
Pages: 778–779

Head Matter:
CAMPBELL v. STATE.
(No. 9573.)
(Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
Feb. 3, 1926.)
Umphres, Mood & Clayton, of Amarillo, for appellant.
Sam D. Stinson, State's Atty., of Austin, and Nat Gentry, Jr., Asst. State’s Atty., of Tyler, for the State.

Opinion:
HAWKINS, J.
Conviction is for transporting intoxicating liquor; the punishment being one year in the penitentiary.
W. Y. Spencer was the only witness the state produced who testified to any crimina-tive fact. Spencer had 57 quarts of whisky which he had secreted in a pasture near a schoolhouse. His testimony was substantially that he and appellant were on a trade, whereby Spencer was to buy from appellant the latter's interest in a "taxi" business, and that appellant agreed to take the whisky in question at a valuation of $500 as part payment on the business; that Spencer agreed to and did meet appellant at the schoolhouse, and from there they went to where the whis-ky was hidden, and it was loaded in appellant's car, and he drove away with it. On this transaction the state relies to convict ap pellant for transporting the whisky. We have searched the record in vain to find where any other witness in the slightest degreie corroborated Spencer upon any material crimi-native fact.
Article 670, Pen. Code (1925 Revision), relieves from the taint of an accomplice only purchasers, transporters, and possessors of intoxicating liquor. Spencer, it is true, was a "possessor," but from his own evidence he was a "seller" in the transaction with appellant, and therefore an accomplice witness under the general statute (article 718, O. O. P. 1925 Revision, 801 Vernon's C. C. P.), which expressly forbids a conviction upon the testimony of an accomplice unless corroborated.
There being no corroboration, the law demands a reversal of the judgment, and it is so ordered.