State v. Kepler

250 P. 603, 77 Mont. 307, 1926 Mont. LEXIS 150
CourtMontana Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 30, 1926
DocketNo. 5,984.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 250 P. 603 (State v. Kepler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Montana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Kepler, 250 P. 603, 77 Mont. 307, 1926 Mont. LEXIS 150 (Mo. 1926).

Opinion

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE CALLAWAY

delivered the opinion of the court.

Okey Kepler and John, or W. H., Millsap, were charged with selling intoxicating liquor, possessing intoxicating liquor, and maintaining a common nuisance. Each came into court with his counsel and pleaded not guilty, Millsap on April 30 and Kepler on May 1, 1926.

On May 28 there was entered in the. minutes of the court an entry stating that the defendant Okey Kepler, by his counsel, D. J. Ryan, in open court asked leave, which leave was granted, to withdraw Kepler’s former plea of not guilty and to enter a plea of guilty of possession of intoxicating liquor, whereupon Kepler was ordered to appear at 2 o’clock P. M. on that day to receive sentence. Upon the same day an entry was made in the minutes showing that Mr. Ryan, as attorney for Okey Kepler, withdrew the former plea of not guilty and forthwith entered a plea of guilty as charged in the information and “the said case was dismissed as to John Millsap.” On June 3 the court denominated the foregoing erroneous entries and ordered them expunged from the record. After this *309 order was entered the court proceeded with the trial of the case and without objection from anyone, so far as the record discloses; but Mr. Ryan announced: “The record will show I am not appearing for Okey Kepler.”

Nevertheless it appears to us from the record that Mr. Ryan did represent Kepler, and with as much zeal as he represented Millsap, throughout the trial. Upon the conclusion of the testimony the court instructed the jury which returned a verdict finding the defendant Kepler guilty of selling intoxicating liquor and the defendant Millsap guilty of possessing intoxicating liquor and of maintaining a common nuisance. The defendants severally have appealed from the judgments entered upon the verdicts.

The specifications of error are, in effect, that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdicts; that the court erred in amending its minutes; that the court erred in not granting a continuance of the cause upon the application of Kepler, and in not giving the appellants and each of them time in which to procure their witnesses and prepare for trial.

1. The evidence discloses that upon December 26, 1925, Eu- gene Van Wert and C. S. Hanna, state law enforcement officers, went to defendant Millsap’s “clothes pressing establishment and barber shop” on First Avenue South in the city of Great Falls. The arrangement of the place was thus described by Millsap: ‘ ‘ The place I am occupying is a long building; the store is about 60 foot, I guess long, and I would judge it is about, oh, 30 feet wide, and in that store I put in a partition in the back, about 18 or 20 feet, cut it open one side; on one side I put in a barber shop, and on the other side I put the tailor shop. There is a place that you can walk right down through to a back room. * * * There is no door between the two rooms, just an opening in there. I never attempted at any time to conceal the second room from the front room; you could see right straight through.”

Arriving at this place Van Wert went in first, preceding Hanna by a few feet. Millsap was sitting near the opening *310 described above. As Van Wert reached that point Millsap started to get out of his chair and e.alled to Kepler who was in the rear room, but Van Wert, who knew Millsap well, pushed him back in the chair and said, “Sit down, Millsap.” Kepler was filling a pop bottle with moonshine whisky from another bottle; this completed, he put a cork in the pop bottle and handed it to a man who was waiting for it. As the man turned to go out, this occurred, according to Van Wert: “I said to Mr. Kepler — I saw he had some glasses there where he had been making hot drinks — I said, ‘Make us a hot one,’ and he started to do it. Mr. Millsap told him to stop. Millsap said, ‘This is Mr. Van Wert, don’t serve him liquor’; and Kepler laughed and said, ‘No,’ he said, ‘that is not Van Wert’; he said, ‘I know Van Wert, that is not Van Wert.’ We all laughed considerably, and I told Mr. Kepler to go ahead, and he went ahead and made us a drink of moonshine whisky with a little hot- water.” Van Wert paid Kepler for the drinks received by himself and Hanna, whereupon Millsap said to Kepler, “Now you have gone and done it; you have taken his money.” Kepler still insisted that Van Wert was not there, and Millsap said, “You told me that you knew Van Wert, that you shaved him the other day,” to which Kepler replied, “Ves, I do know him; I did shave him.”

The first bottle was soon exhausted and Kepler said he would have to go out and get a bottle. He started and Millsap followed and talked with him. Kepler protested that Van Wert was all right. Kepler went out and returned with another bottle, from which he poured a drink for Hanna, whereupon he was arrested and the bottle seized. Millsap was arrested also.

Hanna gave similar testimony. After Kepler gave the man the pop bottle full of whisky he served Van Wert and Hanna with drinks near the refrigerator, and — “Millsap at the time stated he would not serve those men — that is, Mr. Van Wert there — and there was considerable talk about that, and Kepler insisted that he was not Van Wert. He said, ‘I know Van Wert,’ he said, ‘I know this fellow; he would not bring any *311 one in here that was not all right.’ He said, ‘I knew him at Butte.’ ”

Millsap is a colored man and there were two other colored men and a white man in the place besides Kepler when the officers entered. When, as Hanna testified, it came his turn to buy a drink the bottle was almost empty. “Kepler went out and got another bottle and came back and served us a drink of moonshine whisky. This time I paid for them and gave Kepler a $10 bill, and Kepler handed it to one of the men there, who had to go out and get it changed, and this other man came in with the change. We had a conversation there for some little while, and Millsap recognized me later. At first he did not recognize me. Finally he said, ‘Why, this is Mr. Hanna too, isn’t it?’ He laughed about that. He told Kepler that I was one of the prohibition officers of the state, and then finally I got up and went to the refrigerator and told Kepler he was under arrest, and took the pint bottle out of the refrigerator.”

' Kepler, testifying for the defendant, in response to questions propounded by Mr. Ryan, narrated that when Van Wert and Hanna came in there were four or five men in Millsap’s place and that they had a bottle; one of the boys went out and got a bottle. They were sitting there drinking when Van Wert came in. After Van Wert had called for the hot one, said Kepler, “Well, Mr. Millsap said, ‘If you gentlemen really have to have a hot one, I’ll go and get the water, provided this boy will go and get you the whisky.’ So I went out and got the liquor and came back, and Mr. Millsap had the hot water and glasses; so we made the hot one, and we all drank that pint of liquor up.” He denied that he charged either Van Wert or Hanna for any drinks they got there that night and said that no money changed hands at all, “no more than what somebody chipped in to get a bottle that way.” He said he never knew of any whisky being sold in Millsap’s place.

Millsap, testifying for the defendants, gave an interesting account of the affair. According to him, Van Wert came in,

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322 P.2d 983 (California Court of Appeal, 1958)
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300 P. 226 (Montana Supreme Court, 1931)

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Bluebook (online)
250 P. 603, 77 Mont. 307, 1926 Mont. LEXIS 150, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-kepler-mont-1926.