Hill v. State

• Decision Date: 29 October 1928
• Docket Number: 27262
• Citation: 118 So. 539,151 Miss. 518
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: HILL et al. v. STATE. [*]

118 So. 539

151 Miss. 518

HILL et al. v. STATE. ^[*]

No. 27262

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 29, 1928

Division A

WITNESSES. Officer, searching vehicle for liquor without warrant, must reveal name of informant as tearing on probable cause (Hemingway's Code 1927, section 2239).

Bearing on the question for the court whether officer had probable cause to believe that intoxicating liquor was being transported in. a vehicle, and so, under Hemingway's Code 1927, section. 2239 (Laws 1924, chapter 244, section 2), was authorized to search it without a search warrant, he, stating that he acted on information given him, must reveal the name of his informant, though, without right to do so, he had promised that he would not divulge it; this that defendant may have opportunity to show that informant was not a person worthy of belief.

HON. W L. CRANFORD, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Simpson county, HON. W. L. CRANFORD Judge.

Lee Hill and another were convicted of unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor, and they appeal. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

J. P. and A. K. Edwards, for appellant.

Weaver testified that he took this liquor which was the only material evidence offered in the case, from the actual possession of defendant Hill, and without any warrant for his arrest, and without any warrant for the search of the car. He refused to show that he had reasonable cause to make the search of the car, and when asked to give the defendant's attorney the name of his informant as to the defendant's intention of coming to his town with intoxicating liquor in their car, he refused to give this information or the name of his informant, saying "it was a negro." The court stood by the witness and refused to compel him to disclose such informant's name, this being over the protest of defendant. Not having shown probable cause to search this car, his discoveries made by the search were inadmissible against the defendant. Hamilton v. State, 115 So. 427.

James W. Cassedy, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General for the state.

It is assigned and argued that it was error for the court to refuse to require the witness to give the name of his informant. The case of Hamilton v. State, 115 So. 427, is cited as authority in support of appellants' contention. That case followed the case of Mapp v. State, 114 So. 825, in which the court held that the defendant had a right to propound the question to the witness and have it answered as to where he obtained the information. Following the Mapp case it was held in the Hamilton case that the court committed a reversible error in denying to appellant the right to have the officer name his informant.

Following these two cases it is apparent that the error is fatal to the case at bar, and that because of such error this case should be reversed and remanded.

OPINION

MCGOWEN, J.

The appellants, Lee Hill and Lee Kiser, were convicted by the circuit court of Simpson county, Mississippi, of the unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor, and were sentenced to pay a fine of three hundred and fifty dollars and to serve a term of thirty days in the county jail, from which they prosecute an appeal to this court.

As this case must be reversed and remanded for another trial, we deem it unnecessary to discuss the several assignments of error. During the trial it was shown that the officer found one of the defendants in the car with the whisky in his bosom, and, upon the question of probable cause for such search without a warrant, the officer asked by the counsel for the appellants from whom he had obtained the information that the appellants had whisky, and the officer replied: "I would not like to divulge his name; I told him I wouldn't tell." Upon appellants' counsel insisting upon an answer, the court replied: "I won't require him to do...