Hodge v. State

• Citation: 65 So. 676,11 Ala.App. 185
• Decision Date: 16 June 1914
• Docket Number: 291
• Parties: HODGE v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

65 So. 676

11 Ala.App. 185

HODGE v. STATE.

No. 291

Court of Appeals of Alabama

June 16, 1914

Appeal from City Court of Andalusia; Ed. T. Albritton, Judge.

Tom Hodge was convicted for illegally keeping for sale intoxicating liquors, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Parks &amp Prestwood, of Andalusia, for appellant.

R.C Brickell, Atty. Gen., and T.H. Seay, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

THOMAS J.

"Inscriptions designedly placed on bottles, boxes, or other packages, in the ordinary way, for the obvious purpose of indicating their nature or contents, may in general be regarded as competent evidence thereof, at least against those persons who have such objects in their possession, or who dispense them to others. Their external indicia are some evidence, stronger or weaker, according to accompanying circumstances of their internal contents. If a defendant is accused of selling alcoholic liquor contrary to law, it cannot be rationally urged that the whisky labels on the bottles of liquid dispensed by him would not be some evidence of the nature of the liquid inside" (Kennedy v State, 62 So. 49, 52); nor, we may add, can it be rationally urged that such labels, when found on boxes or barrels or other packages that are received through, and receipted for by him from, a common carrier, are not some evidence against him of the contents of such boxes, barrels, or packages upon which such labels were at the time of such receipt.

The prosecution was commenced on November 20, 1913, and the evidence for the state tended to show, among other things that, between that date and October 4th next preceding, the defendant had receipted for from the railroad company, as a common carrier, some 20-odd boxes or cases, labeled whisky, weighing in the aggregate, roughly speaking, without stopping to figure it up exactly, about 1,200 pounds; that the defendant operated a restaurant in the town where the cases or boxes were received and receipted for; that one of such boxes or cases, labeled as containing 48 half-pints of gin, was seized by the officers when found on the wagon of a drayman, who, by the direction of the defendant, had been to the depot and gotten it and was, by such direction, carrying it to defendant's restaurant at the time of the seizure; that defendant afterwards asked the officers what they had done with "his gin"; that on one occasion, during the time covered by the indictment, the defendant at the depot where these boxes or cases were receipted for took out, for the purpose of counting and filing a claim for loss, the bottles from one of these boxes or cases that reached there in a damaged condition; that these bottles were either pints or half-pints--the witness did not recall which--and were carried...