Court Opinion

ID: 9615705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:39:56.502765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:50.503854
License: Public Domain

MacIntyre, P. J.,
concurring specially. In order to authorize a conviction in this case, it must appear that the whisky in’ question was found in the actual or constructive possession of the defendant. There is no evidence of the defendant’s posses*760sion of the whisky, unless it appear from the evidence that the rule in Isom v. State, 32 Ga. App. 75 (122 S. E. 722), is applicable to this case. Briefly, the rule in the Isom case is that,, as between the head of a family and members of his family who reside together, the head of the family is presumed to be in possession of the house, the premises, upon which they reside, and all the personal property appertaining thereto, including intoxicating liquors. There is not sufficient evidence present in this case to authorize the jury to find that the defendant was head of the family on whose premises the liquor was found.’ Upon this point the testimony of officer Lyons was that the defendant “lived there on the Selman Place [where the State contends the whisky was found] with Paul Hill [the defendant’s son-in-law] and Hill’s wife,” but that he (Lyons) did not know who rented the Selman Place. Officer Henderson testified upon this point only that he and Lyons went to the house in question where Paul Hill, his wife, and the defendant Lon Freeman lived. Paul Hill testified that he and his wife lived on the Selman Place, where the whisky was found; that he rented the house and the lands around it; and that the defendant did not rent the property, but rented one room in the house from him.
The instant case is distinguishable from the cases of Brooks v. State, 66 Ga. App. 646 (19 S. E. 2d, 43), and Hill v. State, 50 Ga. App. 288, 290 (177 S. E. 826), in that in those cases the evidence was that no one lived in the houses where the whisky was found other than the defendants and their families, of which the defendants were the heads; and thus the rule in the Isom case, supra, was applicable in those cases; but, as I have shown, not applicable to the instant case. See, in thife connection, Rhoddenberry v. State, 50 Ga. App. 378 (178 S. E. 170).