Court Opinion

ID: 9832098
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:37:00.282623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:41.997840
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
It is shown by satisfactory evidence that a statement of facts in this case was properly filed in the court below, and was omitted from the record on appeal by the inadvertence of the district clerk. Same has been forwarded to this court and filed with the papers, and upon the showing made, will now be considered in connection with the motion for rehearing.
The State introduced Mr. and Mrs. Brandenburg who testified at length to the acts of the appellant in the manufacture of intoxicating liquor at their home, in which they both participated. They testified further that following a difficulty between appellant and Brandenburg, appellant carried the still away from the premises. One Hoskins for the State testified that he found the still, which was identified by Brandenburg and his wife, in the bushes near a certain public road described in the evidence. Appellant was arrested at the home of his brother and a search of his brother’s premises failed to reveal the presence of any liquor, still, etc.
Brandenburg and his wife were clearly accomplices. We find nothing in the record tending to connect the appellant with the possession of the still save their testimony alone. Hoskins testified that on one occasion appellant turned a car over near the house of witness and appeared to be drinking; that appellant was coming down the public road just referred to from the *222same general direction in which later the still was found in the brush some one hundred.or so yards from said road; Under the facts in this case, that appellant was coming down the public highway from the southwest and that a still identified by Brandenburg and his wife as the one which appellant had carried away from their house some time before, which was later found in the brush not far from said road, would not seem to have substantial evidential value as tending to connect appellant with possession of the still. A small quantity of liquor was found in a boat belonging to appellant, or appellant and his brother, but there is not the slightest intimation that same was made by the still in question, and there is cogent evidence supporting the proposition that the liquor was put in the boat by Brandenburg, who is the brother-in-law of appellant.
We are compelled to the conclusion that the evidence does not measure up to the requirements of the law. Applying the test of exclusion, often resorted to, and looking at the case aside from the testimony of Brandenburg and his wife, there is nothing tending to connect appellant with the still. It would be reasonable to conclude that hundreds of people travel along the highway coming from the direction of the still, past Hos-kins’ home, and that appellant did so would not be a circumstance of any value. That a man should travel said highway and be drinking, would not seem to be of any particular force. As we understand the record, the still was not set up, nor in condition for operation, at the place where it was found.
Responding to our conclusion regarding the evidence, as above announced, the motion for rehearing is granted, the affirmance set aside and the judgment is now reversed and the cause remanded.

Reversed and remanded.