Court Opinion

ID: 9825580
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 13:25:54.112569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:01.427746
License: Public Domain

SAMFORD, J.
There were many objections and exceptions taken and reserved during the taking of the testimony. To pass upon each of these would extend this opinion far beyond the lengths to which a consideration of these questions is entitled. Nearly all of these exceptions are without merit, and we hold that in each instance, where they related to the res gestae, the objec*502tions were properly overruled, or the action of the court was without prejudicial error, except as shall hereinafter appear.
There being evidence from which the jury might infer that the defendant and Arthur Williams were particeps criminis in the sale of the whisky and the keeping of a place in which to sell prohibited liquors, everything said and done by Arthur Williams in furtherance of the common design was admissible in evidence against this defendant. Lancaster v. State, ante, p. 140, 106 So. 609.
When the Siief law enforcement officer was being examined as a witness for the state, he was permitted to testify over objections and exceptions of defendant that, shortly after the arrest of defendant and Arthur Williams, he arrived on the scene and made a search qf a two-room house on a lot adjacent to the store of defendant, that in one room of this house a man named Crosby slept, that in this room he found nothing, but that in the next room he found about a truck load of bottles, siphons, glass jugs, funnels, etc., in which had been whisky, and in which there was still a little whisky. There was a wall fence built of 1 x 12 plank, more than six feet high between defendant’s store and the adjoining lot on which is located the two-room house. At the northwest corner of the yard is a gate which is the entrance to the yard surrounding the two-room house. This house was shown to be the property of McIntyre Bros.
The evidence- discloses that Crosby was working for defendant in his store where persons were seen and heard arranging for the purchase of liquor with Arthur Williams, who was also working for defendant. Crosby slept in the south room of the two-room house, in the other room of which was a “two-ton truck load” of bootleg paraphernalia. Williams was seen to go to the room and unlock it, thereby connecting him with the room and contents. When Williams took the three gallons of whisky from defendant’s auto,, it connected defendant with Williams, and when Williams went into the yard towards the room and was “on the side of this house next to town; that he was going to take the liquor and measure it up,” it connected defendant with the premises and the room. A careful reading of this record discloses sufficient evidence from which the jury were authorized to conclude that defendant, Arthur Williams, Crosby, and perhaps others were in a conspiracy to violate the prohibition law. That being a fact, the two-room house, the yard, and surrounding buildings occupied by either or all of them became a part of the res gestee, and, being a conspiracy, every fact tending to prove the ’conspiracy, even remote in itself, is admissible in evidence.
The rule governing objections to questions and motion to exclude answers is, where the question calls for illegal evidence and the answer is responsive, an objection to the question, and an exception to the ruling of the court will present the ruling for review without a motion to exclude the answer. When the answer to the question is not responsive, the trial court will not be put in error unless a motion is made to exclude the answer and exception is reserved to the action of the court in overruling the motion. Miller v. State, 16 Ala. App. 3, 74 So. 840; White v. State, 209 Ala. 546, 96 So. 709; Haney v. State, 20 Ala. App. 236, 101 So. 533; Ex parte Haney, 211 Ala. 614, 101 So. 537; Moulton v. State, 19 Ala. App. 446, 98 So. 709; Ex parte Moulton, 210 Ala. 656, 98 So. 715. These eases are not clear as to the distinction here announced, but it will be observed that where the facts are stated in the opinion the distinction is always observed and followed.
The remarks of the solicitor to which exceptions were taken are not sufficient’upon which to predicate a reversal. Solicitors should be courteous in argument and confine their conclusions to deductions from the testimony, but each case must be decided upon its own merits, and in this case we hold that the remarks of the solicitor did not probably injuriously affect the substantial rights of the defendant; especially is this so when the charge of the court as to the solicitor’s remarks was, “Don’t take the argument into consideration at all.”
Refused charge 1, being the affirmative charge, was properly refused. Charge 2 was covered by the court in his oral charge. Refused charges 3 and A are abstract. We find no prejudicial error in the record, and the judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.