144 Ky. 550 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1911
Opinion op the Court by
— Affirming.
Under an indictment for selling liquor in violation of the local option law, the appellant was convicted. He asks a reversal of the judgment against him on the ground that there was no evidence to support the verdict, and that the instructions were erroneous. The evidence of appellant’s guilt is not satisfactory, hut in this class of cases it does not and ought not to require very convincing evidence to sustain a verdict of guilty, and when a jury has passed on the question we will not disturb its finding if there are any facts or circumstances upon which it can reasonably rest.
In these cases for violating the liquor laws in territory in which the sale of liquor is prohibited, trial courts and juries have exceptional opportunity for getting at the truth, and it is not often that juries and trial courts make the mistake of convicting an innocent man. They see things as they are on the ground, and many times little circumstances and incidents that do not. get into the
The evidence shows that appellant was approached in the city of Elizabethtown by one W. H. Nall, who testifies that he gave appellant $1.50 and asked him to get some whisky for him, and he said he would; and soon afterwards, appellant returned and delivered to Nall four half-pint bottles of whiskey. Nall did not know where appellant got the whiskey, or who, if any person, he obtained it from. Appellant testified that he got the whiskey for Nall from a man named Neighbors, who was dead at the time of the trial; that he had no interest in the whiskey, and gave to Neighbors the $1.50 given to him by Nall. He also said that he had been in the habit of going to Neighbors and getting whiskey for himself and others who wanted it. It was also shown by the evidence of the appellant that he was in the habit of ordering whiskey in quantities of one or two gallons and more, and other answers made by appellant to questions asked him on his cross-examination leaves the impression that he was not engaged in any regular employment, but devoted a good deal of his time and attention to getting whiskey for himself and others. It is true that appellant testified positively that he had no interest in this whiskey, merely getting it from Neighbors at Nall’s request and for him, but the jury had the right to consider in connection^with this the other admissions of appellant, that he had no regular employment and ordered whiskey in quantities larger than a person would ordinarily get for his own use — and that he had on several occasions gotten whiskey from Neighbors and for other persons — and that in going to Neighbor’s house on this occasion he went, not directly, but in a round-about way, and from these circumstances they had the right to believe that appellant either sold to Nall whiskey owned by him or that in procuring it he was acting as agent for Neighbors, in either of which events he was guilty of
Wherefore, the judgment is affirmed.