Harris v. State, 34141
| Decision Date | 14 July 1952 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 34141,34141,2 |
| Citation | 86 Ga.App. 607,71 S.E.2d 861 |
| Parties | HARRIS v. STATE |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
1. The evidence here as to the defendant's possession of non-tax-paid liquor, although circumstantial, was sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused. It is not necessary, even in criminal cases, to exclude every conjecture coming within the bounds of remote possibility, but only to exclude reasonable hypotheses and reasonable inferences.
2. The court did not err in permitting the arresting officer to testify that he raided the defendant's premises as the result of a report received by him without, at the same time, compelling the officer to state by whom the report was made.
The defendant Lucky Harris was indicted and convicted in the Superior Court of Walton County for possessing illegal liquor. The evidence, which was entirely circumstantial, was to the effect: that the defendant with his family occupied a house and yard which was enclosed by a fence; that the nearest house was one occupied by his father and brother, which was up the road about 100 yards across a hog lot; that the next nearest houses up the road were a quarter of a mile away; that tradesmen generally had a right to use this road as far as a gate through which it passed, directly behind the defendant's house, into a pasture; that there was no other general access to the pasture; that three pastures cornered at this location, and in the corner just over the fence and about 95 steps from the defendant's house were bales of hay, which the defendant had helped to stack and place there about two days previously; that, as the officers entered the premises, the defendant was standing by one of the bales of hay; that when he saw the officers he began to carry the hay to feed the owner's cows in the next pasture; that the officers went to where the defendant had been standing and found several pint bottles, a half gallon jug full of non-tax-paid liquor, and another about half full, together with a funnel with a fresh smell of whisky, all buried in the hay. Within the house they found four or five empty half-gallon fruit jars containing what was described as a fresh smell of white liquor, and some tumblers with the same odor containing a drop or two of whisky. There was also testimony that, at a period within two years of the present raid, officers had found a half gallon jar of illegal whisky at the edge of the defendant's...
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