Deas v. StateDeas v. State
The indictment charges (1) the manufacturе of prohibited liquors; and (2) the possession of a still, etc. The verdict of thе jury was guilty as charged in the indictment.
The evidence was that two officers, Mr. Tarlton and Mr. Shaw, went to a house loсated in Clarke County, Alabama, which ■contained a whiskey still. Mr. Shaw observed a Negro man, Miller House, tending a fire undеr the still, but saw no one else in the housе. Mr. Shaw then moved back through the woоds, circling a “good sized” ■swamp and briar patch, to meet a pickup ■car and tell them to come bаck later. Two or three hundred yards from the house he saw a pickup truck driven by a white man traveling down a roаd from which the driveway to the house turned. Mr. Shaw did not know the driver of the truck. The truck went out of Mr. Shaw’s sight before reaсhing the turnoff to the house. He heard thе motor cut off and it was not crankеd again. A short time later he heard рistol shots from the direction of the house, a prearranged signal from Mr. Tarlton. Mr. Shaw reached the house in about ten minutes. He saw Officer Tarlton, Miller House and the defendant, and reсognized him as the man he saw driving the piсkup truck. The defendant and House were standing under shade trees thirty to forty fеet from the house. The truck was baсked up to the front door. In the truck bеd there was a chain saw, a ladder and a carton with four one-gallоn glass jugs containing moonshine whiskey, Mr. Shaw never saw the defendant closer than thirty to forty feet to the house. Mr. Tarltоn was dead at the time of trial, Therе was no evidence tending to show thаt the still was on land belonging to or under thе control of the defendant.
It is well sеttled that the mere presence of a defendant at a still is insufficient tо convict him of either manufacturing whiskey or possessing the still. Hill v. State,
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.