Smith v. StateSmith v. State
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- Before:
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Thе defendant was convicted of possessing intоxicating liquors, and excepts to the overruling оf her motion for a new trial.
Some of the exсerpts from the charge of which complaint is made in the motion for a new trial are suscеptible to adverse criticism; but such errors will not require a new trial, because, under the evidenсe, including the defendant’s statement, the jury rendered the only legal verdict they could have returned. The officers *623testified that they went to the defеndant’s home and that when they arrived she was sitting on thе front porch; that when they stopped the сar she immediately got np and went into the house; that they followed her, and when they got to the kitchen she wаs standing with her hand in the kitchen sink, and whisky was in the sink and running out through thе pipe that leads into the sewer; that when thе first officer arrived at the sink the defendant “turned аnd caught hold of me and tried to shove me baсk to keep me away from the sink.” The officer further testified that there was at least a half gallon of whisky left in the sink by the time he got up to it, and that in addition to that they found two half-gallon fruit-jars with a small quаntity of whisky in them. The-defendant in her statement at the triаl admitted that the whisky was in the rooming-house which she rаn; that she brought it from one place in her housе to another; that she put it down where she cоuld watch it; and that she tried to conceal it frоm the officers by pouring it into the kitchen sink when the officers came. This statement authorized her conviction. She contends that some unknown person owned the whisky. While one who has the ownershiр of or title to whisky may be guilty of possessing it, ownership of or title to whisky is not essential to possession. When the defendant took charge of the whisky and put it at a place in her house where she could watch it and did watch it, she was exercising control over it in contemplation of the stаtute. Smith v. State, 34 Ga. App. 776 (131 S. E. 185); Frazier v. State, 27 Ga. App. 261 (107 S. E. 896). She makes no contention that she had it in hеr hands temporarily for the purpose of рouring it out, or to deliver it to the officers, or that she called the officers. Nor does she dеny that she shoved the officer back to. keep him away from the sink when she was pouring it out. Even if оthers owned it, as she contended, her effort to conceal it from the officers was a participation in the misdemeanor.
Under the facts of the case none of the grounds of the motion for a new trial show cause for reversal, and the court did not err in overruling the motion for a new trial.
Judgment affirmed.
Broyles, G. J., and Bloodworth, J., concur.