Crum v. State

63 So. 2d 242, 216 Miss. 780, 23 Adv. S. 11, 1953 Miss. LEXIS 695
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 9, 1953
Docket38662
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 63 So. 2d 242 (Crum v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Crum v. State, 63 So. 2d 242, 216 Miss. 780, 23 Adv. S. 11, 1953 Miss. LEXIS 695 (Mich. 1953).

Opinion

*784 McGehee, C. J.

This case was first tried in a justice of the peace court in Supervisor’s District No. 2 of Tippah County. The charge against the defendant C. R. (Ted) Crum is that on May 17, 1952, he unlawfully had in his possession intoxicating liquors in such supervisor’s district. Prior to the making of the affidavit by the sheriff charging the defendant with this offense the said officer had on that day made the propér affidavit for a search warrant and had obtained a valid search warrant to search for intoxicating liquors “in the residence, outhouses, barns, stalls, smokehouses, crib, and in the field, yard, garden and woods near the residence of C. R. Crum in the Second District of Tippah County, Mississippi, in Section 1, Township 4, Range 3 . . .” The affidavit and search warrant then specifically stated the location of the residence of the accused in such manner as to particularly point out how the premises could be found by the searching officer.

*785 The proof discloses that the sheriff and his deputy on that day made the search and found two pints of whiskey in the grass a few feet from a well beaten path which led from the defendant’s residence to a garbage dump some forty to fifty yards distant from the house, and which pathway was admittedly being used by the defendant and his wife at the time in question, and’there was no proof that others had more- than a limited access, if any, to the pathway during that year. See the case of Revette v. State, 209 Miss. 860, 48 So. 2d 511, as to the limitation of the “beaten path” doctrine.

The pathway in question extended through some strands of wire which enclosed a small area of ground where the whiskey was discovered. There were outhouses in this enclosure, and according to the testimony of the sheriff there were “quite a few” trees growing therein. The enclosed area was not in cultivation and the contention is made by' the defendant that it was a “pasture”, a place not designated in the affidavit and search warrant. We are of the opinion that the affidavit and warrant were sufficient to authorize the search of the area where the whiskey was found.

The defendant offered evidence to show that during the year 1951 he had rented the area where the whiskey was found to one Clovis Eaton, who had in turn sub-rented the same to Leland Cox, a negro, and that Cox had during that year used this pathway in carrying garbage to the dump and had entered upon the area in question in watering his stock. But since this was during the year prior to the finding of the whiskey by the officers, this evidence was insufficient to overcome the prima facie presumption that the premises were in the possession and under the control of the defendant during the year 1952.. On that issue the defendant requested and was refused an instruction to the jury “that it is undisputed that the pasture in question was rented by bim to another person for the year 1951; and if you find from *786 the evidence that there was a reasonable probability that the whiskey was placed in the pasture in 1951 without the knowledge or consent of the said Crum, then you will find him not guilty.” The trial court refused this instruction as constituting a comment on the weight of the evidence. Moreover, the sheriff had testified that he did not consider that the enclosure was a pasture. The refusal of this instruction is assigned as error, but aside from what is above stated it further appears that the defendant obtained an instruction to the effect that even though the jury believed that the whiskey was found on the property of the defendant, yet the State must prove beyond every reasonable doubt “that the defendant either owned the whiskey himself or that it was on his land with his knowledge and consent.”

It follows from what we have said that the search was valid and that the proof was sufficient to go to the jury so far as the issues heretofore stated are concerned, and that there was no error in the refusal of the instruction first above referred to.

However, although the affidavit for the search warrant, the search warrant and the affidavit before the justice of the peace charging the offense all recited that the accused had possession of the whiskey unlawfully in Supervisor’s District No. 2 of the county where the justice of the peace court was held, there was no proof whatever offered by the State upon the de novo trial in the circuit court to show that the whiskey was found in said supervisor’s district. Nor did the State’s instruction require the jury to believe that the whiskey was found in said district; they only required that the jury should believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the same was found in Tippah County.

It is contended by the State that the fact that the affidavits and search warrant above referred to recited that the defendant was in possession of the whiskey in supervisor’s district No. 2 of the county, and the fur *787 tlier fact that his appeal bond to the circuit court recited that he had been convicted in said supervisor’s district, were sufficient to confer jurisdiction upon the circuit court on appeal.

It is true that the appeal record was'sufficient to confer jurisdiction upon the circuit court to try the case, but they were not sufficient to constitute proof upon the trial in the circuit court that the whiskey was actually found in the possession of the defendant in the said supervisor’s district. The proof of such venue was an essential element of the State’s case, and without which proof the territorial jurisdiction of the justice of the peace from whose court the appeal was taken, and hence ■that of the circuit court, was not established upon the latter trial. Since the proof of venue was jurisdictional to the right of the jury in the circuit court to convict the defendant and to the right of the circuit court to enter a judgment of conviction of the offense charged in the affidavit, the cause must be reversed.

It is contended, however, by the defendant that since he moved to exclude the evidence offered by the State and requested a written peremptory instruction in favor of the defendant, we should enter a final judgment here discharging him.

In the case of Sullivan, et al. v. State, 136 Miss. 773, 101 So. 683, the cause was reversed and remanded solely on the ground that the State had failed to prove the venue of the alleged crime.

In the case of Dorsey v. State, 141 Miss. 600, 106 So. 827, the Court said: “We have held repeatedly that venue is jurisdictional and must he proven, and that the question could be raised for the first time in this court. Norwood v. State, 129 Miss. 813, 93 So. 354; Slaton v. State, 134 Miss. 419, 98 So. 838; Sullivan v. State, 136 Miss. 773, 101 So. 683; Sandifer v. State, 136 Miss. 836, 101 So. 862; Quillen v. State, 106 Miss. 831, 64 So. 736; Cagle v. State, 106 Miss. 370, 63 So. 672; Monroe v. State, *788 (Miss.), 104 So. 451; Pickle v. State, 137 Miss. 112, 102 So. 4; Carpenter v. State (Miss.) 102 So. 184.” To the same effect is the very recent case of Street v. State, 209 Miss. 735, 48 So. 2d 358

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
63 So. 2d 242, 216 Miss. 780, 23 Adv. S. 11, 1953 Miss. LEXIS 695, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crum-v-state-miss-1953.