Cuevas v. City of Gulfport

• Decision Date: 07 April 1924
• Docket Number: 24000
• Citation: 99 So. 503,134 Miss. 644
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: CUEVAS v. CITY OF GULFPORT

99 So. 503

134 Miss. 644

CUEVAS v. CITY OF GULFPORT

No. 24000

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 7, 1924

Division B

APPEAL from circuit court of Harrison county, HON. D. M. GRAHAM Judge.

L Cuevas was convicted of the unlawful possession of intoxicating liquors, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

Mize & Mize, for appellant.

Here, a man's residence was searched by officers who claimed they had a search warrant; they don't testify that the search warrant sufficiently described appellant's house or his premises or anything of the kind. They just said that they had a search warrant and it was returned to Judge Bellande's court, and the court then allowed the officers to go ahead and give testimony as to what they found in appellant's house and on his premises and on the land on the outside of his premises, when at every stage of the proceedings appellant was objecting to the introduction of such testimony until they produced the search warrant or sufficiently accounted for its loss.

Of course such evidence could not have been admitted without a search warrant, under the well-known Tucker Case and later authorities. Before the officers could testify as to what they found on appellant's premises, they should first have produced the warrant; and, when appellant objected to the admission of such evidence when no search warrant was introduced, the officers should either have produced the warrant or sufficiently accounted for its loss. As a matter of fact, it may be seriously doubted whether there was any search warrant, or they would have had it from Bellande's court, as he is a well known justice of the peace in Gulfport; and, be it said to the credit of the officers, they did not attempt to show that the warrant described Cuevas' house and Cuevas' premises.

No brief filed for appellee.

OPINION

ETHRIDGE, J.

The appellant was tried and convicted in the city court of Gulfport for having intoxicating liquors in his possession, and appealed to the circuit court of Harrison county, where he was again tried and convicted, and from the judgment of conviction appeals.

The testimony shows that the officers searched the premises of the appellant, having procured papers to be issued by a justice of the peace for such search, and the officers were tendered as witnesses and stated that they made the search by virtue of a warrant. The defendant objected to the introduction in evidence of anything found in the house unless the search warrant was...