292 S.W. 238 | Tex. Crim. App. | 1927
Conviction for possessing intoxicating liquor for purposes of sale, punishment one year in the penitentiary.
The facts show that appellant's father was engaged in the grocery business in the town of Panhandle, appellant being a clerk in said establishment. On the occasion in question officers, armed with a search warrant, went to the store of appellant's father and found therein something over two gallons of whiskey concealed in a sack. They also found a number of empty bottles, some of which had about them the odor of whiskey. Appellant was unloading a truck load of goods which he had brought to the place from Amarillo, and he seems to have left the premises when he found that the officers had arrested his father, and he was apprehended two or three days later. No one testified to having seen appellant in possession of or having any personal touch or contact with or exercising any control, care and management of the intoxicating liquor so found by the officers, save such as might arise from the fact of his working in the store of his father, and any inference which might follow from the fact that he testified that he had bought the bottles found on the place. He said he bought them for the purpose of resale, and also to put oil and things of that kind in them, it frequently happening that tourists and persons passing by wanted oil and had no container to hold it.
There is only one bill of exceptions in the record, which was reserved to the failure of the court to instruct the jury on the law of circumstantial evidence. The state contends that such charge should not have been given, and reference is had to Terry v. State,
Believing that the learned trial judge erred in refusing to charge the jury on the law of circumstantial evidence, and that such error was material, the judgment of the trial court will be reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded. *354