Beck v. State

216 S.W. 497, 141 Ark. 102, 1919 Ark. LEXIS 294
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedDecember 8, 1919
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 216 S.W. 497 (Beck v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beck v. State, 216 S.W. 497, 141 Ark. 102, 1919 Ark. LEXIS 294 (Ark. 1919).

Opinion

McCulloch, C. J.

This an appeal from a judgment of conviction of the offense of selling intoxicating liquor. Three indictments were returned against appellant at the August, 1918, term of the Logan Circuit Court, each charging the offense of selling whiskey. One of the cases was tried at that term of court and the trial resulted in appellant’s conviction and sentence to the penitentiary. The present case was tried on one of the indictments at the August term, 1919. Appellant entered a plea of former conviction, as well as a plea of not guilty. To sustain the plea of former conviction, appellant attempted to show in the trial of the present case that the alleged sale on which the State relies in the present case for a conviction was made an issue in the trial of the other case at the August term, 1918.

The sale of whiskey charged in each of the indictments is shown to have been made to Ernest Powell, who was the principal witness in each of the trials. Powell testified that in each of the cases he purchased whiskey from appellant. In the present case the State relies on an alleged sale made by appellant to Powell at a drug store on a certain occasion. The other sales were made at another place.

The contention of appellant is that, although the State, in the former trial, first sought to convict appellant on proof of another sale, there was an issue introduced before the trial was completed concerning the sale at the Central Drug Store, which is the basis of the present trial. The testimony tends to show that a sale of whiskey was made by appellant to Powell at the Central Drug Store, in Booneville, on or about April 17,1918, and was sufficient to warrant the jury in so finding. Appellant was, according to the testimony, accustomed to stay in and about the Central Drug Store at that time. Powell testified, in substance, that he met Mathew Williams on the street in Booneville and that Williams requested him to get some whiskey for him, and gave him a five-dollar bill to use in buying the whiskey; that he took the money from Williams, went to the Central Drug Store and accosted appellant on the subject of buying some whiskey; and that appellant replied, saying: “I might find some.” He testified that appellant led him through the storeroom into a back room and lifted the lid of a barrel or bos, and that witness looked into the barrel or bos, and, seeing bottles of whiskey there, took out a bottle and carried it away with him. He testified that when he accosted Beck at the counter in the drug store he laid the five-dollar bill down on the counter near the .cash register, or that he gave it to Beck and that Beck laid it down on the counter, and that when he returned from the back room he found $1.50 in change where he had previously left the five-dollar bill. He testified that he returned the whiskey and $1.50 in change to Williams. Williams testified that he met Powell on the street and asked him to get whiskey for him and that he gave him a five-dollar bill, but his statement is that Powell never brought him the whiskey nor returned him his money, but came back a little later and told him that he had not been able to get any whiskey. Appellant denied that he had sold whiskey or had anything to do in. procuring it for Powell.

Appellant introduced the record of the former trial in which appellant was convicted at the August term, 191i8, of selling whiskey, and in order to show that the .sale to Powell at the Central Drug Store was an issue in the former trial, Judge Evans, one of the attorneys for appellant, was introduced as a witness and testified that on the former trial he interrogated Powell on cross-examination as to his testimony in the mayor’s court in which he had stated that he bought whiskey from appellant at the Central Drug Store, and that Powell admitted that he had so testified in the former trial. This examination, Judge Evans said, was for the purpose of impeaching Powell by showing contradictory statements, and that was the only attempt to show that there was any testimony introduced at the former trial concerning the sale at the drug store.

In the closing argument the prosecuting attorney referred to the testimony drawn out by Judge Evans and stated to the jury that, no matter what the jury might think about the other alleged sale, counsel for appellant had drawn into the case the alleged sale in which Williams was interested, and that appellant had not been called as a witness to testify about it, and that the jury should convict on that, if nothing else. Judge Evans’ testimony on the subject is, according to appellant’s own abstract, as follows:

“The State did not ask Powell about the alleged sale made to him in which Mathew Williams was a witness, but on cross-examination I asked Powell about that for the purpose of showing that he had sworn before the mayor about that sale and had sworn in that examination that he had had nothing to do with any liquor bought from Beck at any other time. I drew that out on cross-examination and did not put Mr. Beck on the witness stand to deny it. In the concluding argument to the jury, Mr. Wofford, who represents the State, said to the jury in arguing the case: ‘No matter what you think about these alleged sales on the night that Buster Kersey was at the restaurant with Powell,’ that I had drawn into the case this alleged sale in which Mathew Williams was in interest, and that the defendant Beck did not deny it and Williams had not been called to testify about it' and' the jury could convict on that and nothing else, and it went to the jury that way, and the jury convicted Beck. These three sales that Powell testifies about here were all before the jury in that case. The State did not elect any special case to rely upon, but relied upon these three sales and got a conviction in that case. ’ ’ ’

It is conceded that Judge Evans’ narrative is correct as to the manner in which, and the purpose for which, he drew out this testimony from Powell on the former trial, but there is a slight difference between his testimony and that of the prosecuting attorney as to the precise language used by the prosecuting attorney in his argument. Of course, those differences might have been settled by the jury, but we are of the opinion that, accepting the version of Judge Evans as correct, it did not make out a case of former conviction. The rule on this subject is clearly stated by Chief Justice Cockrill in the case of State v. Blahut, 48 Ark. 34, as follows:

“Each sale of liquor by the defendant to the minor was a separate offense, and there could be as many convictions as there were sales made. (Emerson v. State, 43 Ark. 372.) It is true the State may preclude the possibility of more than one conviction, even where there have been many sales, by taking a wide range in the proof, putting all the guilty sales in evidence, and relying upon the whole proof for a single conviction. In that case the defendant can be convicted upon the proof of any one of the sales made within a year of the finding of the indictment, and it is the established rule that the former conviction is a bar to a subsequent indictment for any offense of which the defendant might have been convicted upon the testimony under the indictment in the first case.”

This rule was followed in more recent cases. Briant v. State, 72 Ark. 419; Sanders v. State, 115 Ark. 376.

The burden was on appellant to show that the sale which forms the basis of the present charge was made an issue in the former trial.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
216 S.W. 497, 141 Ark. 102, 1919 Ark. LEXIS 294, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beck-v-state-ark-1919.