Court Opinion

ID: 9607926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:03:22.182903+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:41.532541
License: Public Domain

MacIntyre, P. J.,
concurring specially. Where the defendant and his family, over whom he has the right of control, reside together, the legal presumption is that the house and the household effects, including intoxicating liquors, belong to him as head of the family. Isom v. State, 32 Ga. App. 75 (122 S. E. 722). This presumption is, of course, rebuttable. In this case, however, Columbus Self, a person other than the defendant or'a member of the defendant’s family, lived in the defendant's house; and there was no evidence that Self did not have control or possession of such intoxicating liquors as were discovered in the defendant’s house, except the testimony of witnesses as to what Self, not the defendant, had told them; and, while this testimony, under the facts of this case, might have been used for the purpose of impeaching the witness Self, it was pure hearsay as far as the defendant’s possession of the intoxicating liquors was concerned, and was of no probative value. The State, I think, for that reason did not carry the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was in possession of the prohibited liquors.