Brown v State

Brown v State
1916 OK CR 41
156 P. 1150
12 Okl.Cr. 343
Case Number: No. A-2496
Decided: 05/15/1916
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals

EVIDENCE Circumstantial Evidence Sufficiency.

Appeal from County Court, Woods County; Gus Hadwrger, Judge.

James Brown, convicted of a violation of the prohibitory law, appeals. Reversed.

E.W. Snoddy and L.T. Wilson, for plaintiff in error.

R. McMillan, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

PER CURIAM. The plaintiff in error, James Brown was convicted on a charge that he did have the possession of about two gallons of whisky with the willful and unlawful intention to violate provisions of the enforcement act, and he was sentenced to be confined in the county jail for a period of sixty days and to pay a fine of two hundred and fifty dollars. From the judgment he appealed by filing in this court on June 24, 1915, a petition in error with case-made.

Numerous alleged errors are assigned upon exceptions to the instructions given and refused and it is insisted that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict.

The testimony for the state was substantially as follows:

Walter Rambo, sheriff of Woods county testified that he saw Mr. Brown get out of a buggy with a package on his arm and go upstairs into a room, in the McHenry building; that he

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followed him and took the package from him and found that it was a carton containing a gallon of whisky; that he took the carton to the court house and took Mr. Brown along; that he secured a search warrant and went back to the room and found a gallon jug about half full of whisky; that he did not know the man that was sitting in the buggy. That the carton was addressed to and consigned to Clifton Fogle.

James Brown, the defendant, as a witness in his own behalf testified that he lived at Freedom, Woods county, and had resided there about twenty years; that about three months before the time the sheriff raided his room in the McHenry building he came to Alva for medical treatment and during that time occupied said room; that one of his neighbors, Clifton Fogle came to Alva and stayed over night with him; that Fogle was a cripple and walked with a crutch; that Fogle had asked witness that day to carry an express package that he had received upstairs for him; that as he was carrying the carton upstairs he heard somebody following him and the sheriff appeared and took him and the carton to the court house; then they came back and the sheriff searched his room; that the half gallon of whisky he found there was purchased by witness at Kansas City and he had it there for his own use; that he never did sell any intoxicating liquor and never had possession of whisky for any unlawful purpose.

E.L. Yearick; as a character witness testified that he lived about a mile and a half west of Freedom and had lived there fifteen years and is a county commissioner of Woods county; that he had known the defendant for fifteen years and knew his general reputation as to being an upright honest and law abiding citizen and that his reputation was good.

Witnesses Gerlock, L.S. Gaskil, M.W. Benson, Charles Mont and S. Cummings qualified as character witnesses and testified that they lived near the town of Freedom; had known the defendant for from fifteen to twenty years and that his reputation as a law abiding citizen in the community where he resided was good and had always been good.

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The foregoing is a substantial statement of all the testimony taken upon the trial.