Powell v. State
| Decision Date | 20 February 1922 |
| Docket Number | 22205 |
| Citation | 90 So. 625,128 Miss. 107 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | POWELL v. STATE |
INTOXICATING LIQUORS. Evidence held sufficient to sustain conviction of attempt to distill.
The evidence is sufficient to sustain a conviction of attempt to distill intoxicating liquors where it is shown that the accused, with others, on motorcars transported a copper still and apparatus, sugar, shorts, bran, barrels, and other distilling equipment and camping outfit to an isolated spot near a spring and creek, in the woods, and were arrested while removing part of the distilling outfit from the mired car to the suitable spot intended, part of the distilling apparatus being removed to the spot before interruption; such acts being proximate and overt toward the consummation of the crime intended.
APPEAL from circuit court of Marshall county, HON. W. A. ROANE Judge.
Lee Powell was convicted of attempting to distill intoxicating liquors, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
L. A Smith and C. Lee Crumb, for appellant.
F. H. Lotterhos, assistant attorney-general, for the state.
The appellant, Lee Powell, appeals from a conviction on a charge of attempting to distill intoxicating liquors. There are several errors assigned for reversal, but we think none of them are of sufficient merit to warrant discussion, except the main contention, which is that the evidence in the case is insufficient to support the charge in the indictment.
The facts of the case, which are practically undisputed, are substantially as follows: The appellant and others left Memphis traveling southward through Marshall county with a heavy truck, a Ford car, and a Cadillac car. The truck was loaded with a copper still capable of holding four hundred or five hundred gallons of mash, and about eighteen empty barrels with the heads knocked out, and others, suitable for storing liquor. The Cadillac car which was loaded with one thousand, five hundred pounds of sugar, several hundred pounds of meal, bran and shorts, and considerable camp equipment. The Ford car brought up the rear with several men of the outfit.
It seems that this "caravan" moved in the nighttime, but left its peculiar trail on the public road which ultimately resulted in its discovery and capture.
On Sunday morning they were discovered and arrested in Pigeon Roost bottom, where the vehicles had bogged up in the mire, after having turned off of the public road and headed in the direction of a piece of high ground close to a cool spring, near the side of the spring branch where it flowed into Pigeon Roost creek.
At the point where the caravan left the public road to go into the inaccessible forest--to the isolated high spot near the spring--there was no established road leading into the woods, but the route, had been blazed on the trees, which was a sufficient guide to lead the party across Pigeon Roost bottom to the elevated ground close to the spring and creek.
The vehicles did not reach the intended spot on account of becoming mired, and when the party could advance no farther they then began to move, and did move, the camp equipment to the elevated spot, erecting a tent and preparing their sleeping quarters. They also moved part of the distilling equipment to the spot near the spring, being assisted in the moving by a hired negro who lived near by and who appeared on the scene with his wagon and team. Thus while in the progress of moving from the mired vehicles the distilling equipment and material the whole outfit was arrested by officers, and tried and convicted for attempting to distill. One of the men in the party lived farther south in Marshall county. It was not shown at the trial that any mash had been prepared or made up, nor that any effort in the way of building a fire had been made, up to the time of the arrest. There was a cornfield near the place. The defendants at the trial offered no proof, but relied upon the failure of the state to prove the attempt to distill intoxicating liquor.
The principal contention of the appellant is that the state fails to show an attempt because it failed to show any overt act on the part of the...
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