Benson v. State

233 S.W. 758, 149 Ark. 633, 1921 Ark. LEXIS 292
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedSeptember 26, 1921
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 233 S.W. 758 (Benson 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
Benson v. State, 233 S.W. 758, 149 Ark. 633, 1921 Ark. LEXIS 292 (Ark. 1921).

Opinion

Smith, J.

Appellant was convicted of making intoxicating liquors, and has appealed. He strongly insists that the testimony is insufficient to support the verdict; that the court erred in admitting testimony and in instructing the jury and in permitting a witness' named Tisdale to remain in the courtroom during the progress of the trial when other witnesses had been put under the rule.

Testimony tending to support the verdict was offered to the following effect: J. T. Tisdale, a Federal prohibition enforcement officer, received information that a still was being operated. He applied to, and received from, the sheriff of the county a diagram of appellant’s premises, as Tisdale was not familiar with the roads in the section of the county where the still was supposed to be located. Accompanying this diagram was a letter of information and directions, which was not signed. Tis-dale went to appellant’s borne, and found appellant there with his wife. Tisdale was accompanied by his son and by one Hazel, a constable of the county. These officers searched, appellant’s house, and found a quart fruit jar about half .or two-thirds full of moonshine whiskey. Upon further search several jars, jugs and bottles containing small quantities of whiskey were found, and still other receptacles were found which were redolent of whiskey. Before this search was made, appellant had stated that there was no whiskey in his house. The officers testified that about one hundred and twenty-five yards from appellant’s residence and on his farm they found a cave which contained a still or where a still had been. The place was afire and had evidently been burning for some hours. They found there six barrels of mash, some of the barrels full and others which had been burned were only partly full. The officers took appellant and his wife to the still and asked what it meant. Appellant’s wife, in appellant’s presence, suggested that the still had been placed there by some enemy of her husband, because he was, as she expressed it, the “law,” meaning thereby that her husband was the justice of the peace for that township. She made the same suggestion in regard to the whiskey in her house. Appellant’s explanation of the presence of the whiskey in Ms home was that a doctor had prescribed and furnished this whiskey for the use of his wife.

The field between appellant’s house and the still had been freshly plowed, and there were tracks of a man and woman to and from the still and appellant’s house, and there was a well-beaten path from appellant’s back gate to the distillery. There were fresh wagon tracks from appellant’s barn gate to the still, and appellant admitted he had made these tracks doing some hauling the day before.

The .officers also observed that a sweetgum bush had been cut about four feet from the distillery walls. They also saw in appellant’s smokehouse three one-gallon jugs, each containing a little whiskey, and these jugs each contained a stopper made from a sweetgum hush of a size corresponding to the piece that was cut out' of the hush near the distillery.

Tisdale testified that,- as a prohibition enforcement officer, he had raided or captured about five hundred stills, and was familiar with the manufacture of whiskey, and that the mash or beer found at appellant’s place was intoxicating and ready to run. The officers further testified that some of the mash or beer that was found at the still had been boiled off or run through the still.

Hazel, the constable, testified that he found, between the homes of appellant and one Briscoe, which were about half-a-mile apart, a cooling trough and pipe bent for a worm for a still, and that a trail led from appellant’s home to Briscoe’s house. The trough and piping were found about fifty or seventy-five yards from this páth and about half a mile from appellant’s house.

Objections were made to the admission of most of this testimony. But we think it was all competent, and that it established the existence of a partly dismantled still, and we think the jury was warranted in drawing the inference that whiskey had been manufactured at this still, and that appellant was a party to the operation of the still. It may be further added that Briscoe was the stepson and tenant of appellant.

Appellant offered the explanation that the excavation in the side of the hill — which the officers designate as a still — had been made while he was prospecting for ore, and he offered testimony tending to show that no whiskey had been made bn his place, and that, if any had been made, it had been done without his knowledge or consent. The verdict of the jury reflects the fact, however, that this testimony was not credited by the jury.

Appellant was not permitted to pursue his inquiry as to the authorship of the unsigned letter giving information to the officers about the location of the still. He excepted to the ruling of the court on the ground that, if he had been permitted to pursue the inquiry as to the authorship of the letter, he might have ascertained who his enemies were. No error was committed in this respect, as the only purpose of the letter was to enable its possessor to locate the premises. It performed that function, and it was immaterial who wrote it.

Exceptions were saved to the refusal of the court to put the witness, Tisdale, under the rule along with the other witnesses.

In the case of Oakes v. State, 135 Ark. 221, 229, one Claude Duty, an attorney, had been specially employed to aid in the prosecution of the case then on trial. He was not placed under the rule as the other witnesses had been, and objection was made to his testimony on that account. We there disposed of the question by saying: “The question as to whether any witness, or all the witnesses, shall be put under the rule is one that addresses itself to the sound discretion of the court, and that discretion was not abused in permitting Duty to testify. Kirby’s Digest, § 3142; Vance v. State, 70 Ark. 272; Hlass v. Fulford, 77 Ark. 603; St. L., 1. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Pate, 90 Ark. 135.”

Tisdale made the search without a warrant, or other process, from any court specially authorizing him so to do. It is insisted, therefore, that, as the search was illegally made, any evidence of guilt thus discovered was inadmissible in evidence. The authorities are against appellant on this proposition. Without inquiring or deciding what right Tisdale had to search appellant’s premises, it suffices to say that the evidence of appellant’s guilt thus discovered is not rendered inadmissible because Tisdale may have been a trespasser.

At page 2955 of volume 3 of Wigmore on Evidence, in the chapter on “Rules of Extrinsic Policy,” Professor Wigmore says: “For these reasons it has long been established that the admissibility of evidence is not affected by the illegality of the means through which the party has been enabled to obtain the evidence. The illegality is by no means condoned; it is merely ignored.” Starchman v. State, 62 Ark. 238. See, also, 8 R. C. L., p. 196; 24 R. C. L., § 22 of the article on Search and Seizure; 10 R. C. L., § 97 of the article on Evidence, and cases cited in the notes. See, also, numerous cases cited in the brief of the Attorney General.

Among other instructions given by the court was one numbered 2, which reads as follows:

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Bluebook (online)
233 S.W. 758, 149 Ark. 633, 1921 Ark. LEXIS 292, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benson-v-state-ark-1921.