21 Ga. App. 143 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1917
The defendants were found guilty of being in possession of more 'than two quarts of intoxicating liquor. They made a motion for new trial on the general grounds, and upon the special ground of newly discovered evidence, which was overruled, and they excepted. The testimony for the State was circumstántial. It shows that on the morning of September 22, 1916, at two or three o’clock, the defendants were seen by a policeman to pass through Maysville in a car. There was a bulk of something in the back of the car. The top of the car was up and the defendants had what looked like an apron or lap-robe. The State’s witness, the policeman, had suspected the defendants of transporting liquor, and attempted once before to stop the ear of .the defendant Smith, but the latter would not stop. On this occasion he threw his light in front of them and tried to get them to stop but they would not. Witness heard, the following day, that this car had broken down near Maysville, and in the afternoon went down there and found the defendants and the car. They had stopped in a corn patch, about three fee.t from the road. Nothing was in the car except a storm apron. He began to search in the brush around and near the car, and found twenty gallons of liquor in a keg under a brush pile;' out from that a little piece he found a fifteen-gallon keg under another brush, a five-gallon keg up further in the woods, and another five-gallon keg, or can. The car was not even with the kegs, it was a little to the left of the kegs. The kegs had no label or revenue marks on them. There were two other men with the defendants when the policemen arrived. The stopper was out of the first keg the witness saw. The defend7
The alleged newly discovered evidence is based on the affidavits of one Culberson and one Adams.. The record shows no supporting affidavit in reference to Adams, and his affidavit will not be considered. The supporting affidavit in reference to Culberson is hardly a compliance with the requirement of the law that it must show the witness’s residence, associates, character, and credibility, and means of knowledge.. The affidavit is simply to the effect that on the evening of the 31st of September, about dark, the
The evidence, while circumstantial, in our opinion authorized the verdict. The evidence connecting the defendants with this liquor found near their car by the policeman, it is true, is weak, but there are some things in the evidence which are not explained by the defendants, and there was no attempt at explanation. No explanation was offered by them of the bulk of something which the State’s witness saw in their car as it passed through Maysville. It is hardly probable that other parties would have placed this liquor under the brush near the road and left it there during the day without some of them being seen near by. One of the defendants himself said that no automobile stopped there during the day. A mind seeking for the truth would hardly come to any other conclusion from the evidence than that this bulk of something which loomed up in the' car as it passed through Maysville was this liquor, and that when the defendants’ car broke down on the side of the road they removed it to the hiding places in the nearby brush pile, where it was found by the State’s witness.
Judgment affirmed.