Keeter v. State

1921 OK CR 54, 196 P. 970, 19 Okla. Crim. 35, 1921 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 10
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedApril 18, 1921
DocketNo. A-3558.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 1921 OK CR 54 (Keeter v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Keeter v. State, 1921 OK CR 54, 196 P. 970, 19 Okla. Crim. 35, 1921 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 10 (Okla. Ct. App. 1921).

Opinion

DOYLE, J.

Upon an information charging that the defendant, Lester Keeter, did, in Jefferson county, have in his possession intoxicating liquors, to wit, whisky, with the intent to sell, give away, and otherwise furnish the same, and to convey the same, in violation of the prohibitory liquor laws of the state, the plaintiff in error was tried and convicted and his punishment fixed at confinement in the county jail for three months and a fine of $500. From the judgment, rendered April 12, 1919, upon such conviction, he appeals.

The undisputed evidence for the state shows that on the night of the date alleged the defendant, Lester Keeter, from some point in the state of Texas, drove an automobile on to the ferryboat at Heartsfield’s Ferry, on Red river, about seven miles west of Waurika, in Jefferson county; that the boat was at the water’s edge on the Texas side; that, observing two deputy sheriffs of Jefferson county on the Oklahoma side of the river, he backed his automobile off the ferryboat, and about 75 feet from the boat his car stalled; the officers crossed the river and found him standing by his car and 15 sacks of whisky on the sand bar about 70 feet from the car; that the defendant was seen to carry something from the car after it stalled to where the whisky was found. At that time *37 ■ the bed of Red river was about three-quarters of a mile wide, tbe channel was about 200 feet wide, and swept along the left or north bank.

When the state rested, counsel moved for a dismissal upon the ground that the testimony shows that the alleged offense, if committed at all, was committed beyond the jurisdiction of this court, which motion was overruled and exception allowed.

Among the instructions given by the court and excepted to by the defendant was that the south boundary of Jefferson county, Okla., is the south bank and the meanderings thereof of Red river.

Instructions were asked on behalf of the defendant informing the jury that where a river is the common boundary between two states, the jurisdiction to enforce the laws of such states extends only to the middle of the stream, and that neither state is authorized to prosecute a person for an act done upon the waters of the river upon the opposite side of the river unless Congress grant consent to concurrent jurisdiction by interstate compact.

The same jurisdictional question was again raised in the motions for new trial and in arrest of judgment. It is contended in behalf of the plaintiff in error that the testimony failed to prove that the place where the alleged offense was committed was in the state of .Oklahoma, and it is urged:

“That the fact as to where the boundary of Oklahoma extends to on Red river is dependent upon the question whether or not Red river is a navigable stream, and that this question is exclusively in the jurisdiction of the federal courts, and that if Congress, in the act creating the territory of Oklahoma or the Enabling Act admitting the state, did not confer ■ jurisdiction, civil and criminal, over the river or concurrent jurisdiction has not been secured by compact entered into between the states of Oklahoma and Texas, with the consent of Congress, then each state can only exercise such jurisdiction to *38 the middle of the stream” — citing State v. Cunningham, 102 Miss. 237, 59 South. 76, 34 Ann. Cas. 1914D, 782; Spears v. State, 8 Tex. App. 467; Parsons v. Hunt, 98 Tex. 420, 84 S. W. 644.

The question presented by the record is whether the middle of the channel of Red river, or the south bank thereof, is. the boundary line between Oklahoma and Texas. If the south bank is the boundary line, the undisputed evidence of the state shows that the offense charged was committed in the state of Oklahoma.

In the last case cited above, the Supreme Court of Texas, held that “the state of Texas has jurisdiction over the waters, of Red river, which forms the boundary between it and the Indian Territory to the center of the stream, ’ ’ following the opinion of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in the case of Spears v. State, supra, wherein it was held that, under “the. treaty of 1819 between the United States and Spain, which fixed the Rio Roxo of Naehitoches, or Red river, as one of the-boundaries between the two nations,” the jurisdiction of Texas, extends at least to the middle of Red river. It appears from the opinion, the decision is based upon the theory that the treaty “is silent as to which bank of said stream should constitute the boundary,” and the general rule that the mere designation of a river as a boundary, in the absence of a further description,, means the channel or middle of the stream.

That these decisions are baséd upon a misapprehension of the provisions of the treaty of 1819 is apparent from the language of the treaty construed in the light of the diplomatic correspondence that preceded the making of the same, which may be found in the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of United States v. Texas, 162 U. S. 1, 16 Sup. Ct. 725, 40 L. Ed. 867; this being the case decisive of the controversy between the United States and the state of Texas over the jurisdiction of Greer county. It will be seen therefrom that, following the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, negotiations *39 pended for some time between tbe United States and Spain to settle the boundary question, and one of the points of negotiations was as to the boundary line along the Sabine and Red rivers. Finally, Mr. Adams, Secretary of State, submitted a proposition to the Spanish minister, among other points, proposing that the boundary line between- the two countries west of the Mississippi should begin on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the River Sabine, continuing north along the western bank of that river to the thirty-second degree of latitude; thence by a line due north to the Rio Roxo or Red river; thence following the course of the said Red river westward to the 102nd meridian of longitude, then crossing the said Red river, thence due north to the River Arkansas, the Sabine and Red rivers and all islands in the same throughout the course described to belong to the United States, and that the western bank of the Sabine and the southern bank of Red river should be the limit of the jurisdiction of Spain. The Spanish minister required that “the boundary between the two countries shall be the middle of the rivers, and that the navigation of the said rivers shall be common to both countries. ’ ’

Mr. Adams replied that the United States had always intended that “the property of the rivers should belong to them,” and he insisted on that point, “as an essential condition, as the means of avoiding all collision, and as a principle adopted henceforth by the United States in its treaties with its neighbors.” He agreed, however, “that the navigation of the said rivers to the sea shall be common to both people. ’ ’ The Spanish minister assented to this, and the result was the treaty signed on February 22, 1819.

The third article of the treaty reads:

“Art. 3.

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Related

Boswell v. State
1921 OK CR 69 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1921)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1921 OK CR 54, 196 P. 970, 19 Okla. Crim. 35, 1921 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 10, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/keeter-v-state-oklacrimapp-1921.