Hill v. State

• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: MacINTYRE
• Citation: Hill v. State, 50 Ga.App. 288, 177 S.E. 826 (Ga. App. 1934)
• Decision Date: 18 December 1934
• Docket Number: No. 24053.,24053.
• Parties: HILL. v. STATE.

50 Ga.App. 288

177 S.E. 826

HILL.

v.STATE.

No. 24053.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 1.

Dec. 18, 1934.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. "In this state the husband is recognized by law as the head of the family, and, where he and his wife reside together, the legal presumption is that the house and all the household effects, including any intoxicating liquors, belong to the husband as the head of the family. This presumption of course is rebuttable."

2. The evidence and the defendant's statement show that no other person than the defendant and his family lived on the premises where the whisky was found, and the jury were authorized, under the evidence, to conclude that the presumption that the whisky belonged to the defendant had not been rebutted.

Error from Superior Court Chattooga County; James Maddox, Judge.

H. W. Hill was convicted of having, controlling, and possessing whisky, and he brings error.

Affirmed,

Porter & Mebane, of Rome, and John D. & E. S. Taylor, of Summerville, for plaintiff in error.

Jas. F. Kelly, Sol. Gen., of Rome, and J. italph Rosser, of La Fayette, for defendant in error.

MacINTYRE, Judge.

The defendant, H. W. Hill, was convicted for the offense of having, controlling, and possessing whisky. The case comes to this court by bill of exceptions. There are no special assignments of error, and the only question for this court to consider is the general grounds. The evidence for the state in effect was that officers found a five-gallon keg of whisky upstairs in the defendant's barn concealed in a box of oats. After they had found the whisky, they saw the defendant and told him what they had found, and the officers said to him, "We will have to hold you responsible for the possession of the whisky, " and the defendant said he guessed so, or words to that effect; that Mr. Hill had several grown boys living with him at that time; that under one of the sheds in the barn there was a two-horse wagon and on it was a barrel which contained beer. The officers followed the tracks of the wagon out through the barn lot across the field over to a piece of woods about a half mile from the barn. Just outside the field in the woods there was a still place where there had been a furnace in which whisky had been made. They could not track the wagon any further than the woods, and could not follow the tracks down to the still site, but the still site was only a short distance in the woods from the field, which was about a half mile from the defendant's house. They did not know on whose land the still was.

The defendant's son Buck Hill testified that he was a son of the defendant and was living with his father on the premises where the whisky was found; that the whisky was his; that "my father, H. W. Hill, the defendant, knew nothing at all about the whisky and had nothing to do with it. I had put the whisky in the place where the officers found it, so that my father didn't know anything about it, as I knew it would never do to let him know that it was...