Chandler v. State

• Decision Date: 19 May 1921
• Docket Number: (No. 6259.)
• Citation: 231 S.W. 109
• Parties: CHANDLER v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

231 S.W. 109

CHANDLER v. STATE.

(No. 6259.)

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

May 19, 1921.

Appeal from District Court, Kaufman County; Joel R. Bond, Judge.

John Chandler was convicted of being in possession of intoxicating liquor not for medicinal, sacramental, scientific, or mechanical purposes, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Wynne & Wynne, of Kaufman, Miller & Miller, of Athens, and Ross Huffmaster, of Kaufman, for appellant.

R. H. Hamilton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

HAWKINS, J.

Appellant was convicted of being in the possession of intoxicating liquor, not for medicinal, sacramental, scientific, or mechanical purposes.

Only one witness testified upon the trial, and his evidence is here copied in full:

"My name is Beverly Jones. I live down near Kemp, on the farm. I am 20 years of age. I remember having some transaction with Clyde Chandler and John Chandler along about the 15th day of September, or somewhere about that time. I bought the whisky from Clyde in Kemp, and paid him the money, and went out and got the whisky. I bought a gallon, and paid him $7.50. He did not deliver the whisky. I went out to John Chandler's; I went out and told him (Mr. Chandler) that he said give me the whisky. Mr. Chandler said all right, and went and got the whisky, and brought it to me. He gave me a gallon. He got it back in the barn somewhere. I drank some of it, and it had a `kick.' If I had drunk enough, it would have made me drunk."

Appellant raises the question of former conviction, and urges that, because he was convicted for the sale of this identical liquor to Beverly Jones, he cannot also be convicted for having possession of the same liquor. This contention has been decided adversely to appellant in cause No. 6265, John Chandler v. State, 231 S. W. 108, in an opinion delivered May 11, 1921. The exact question was there presented, and Presiding Judge Morrow uses the following terse statement: "The offenses are not the same, nor do they consist in the same act."

The court was requested to charge the jury to return a verdict of "not guilty," because of insufficient evidence. Jones purchased the whisky from Clyde Chandler, but took delivery of it from appellant. The purchaser became an accomplice, as held in Franklin v. State, 227 S. W. 486, and Robert v. State, 228 S. W. 230. When the taint of accomplice attaches, it remains during the dealing with the property, the purchase of which produced the taint. It must indeed have been an...