Ready v. State

• Decision Date: 29 January 1927
• Citation: 290 S.W. 28,155 Tenn. 15
• Parties: READY v. STATE.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

290 S.W. 28

155 Tenn. 15

READY v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

January 29, 1927

Error to Circuit Court, Rutherford County; John E. Richardson Judge.

Collins Ready was convicted of receiving, possessing, and transporting intoxicating liquors, and he brings error. Reversed and remanded.

Wilkes Coffey, Jr., of Murfreesboro, for plaintiff in error.

The Attorney General, for the State.

McKINNEY J.

The plaintiff in error has appealed from a judgment entered against him pursuant to a general verdict on an indictment containing three counts, as follows:

First receiving intoxicating liquors; second, possessing intoxicating liquors; and, third, transporting intoxicating liquors "from one point to another within the state of Tennessee, to wit, from a certain point in the county of Rutherford, state of Tennessee, to another certain point in the county of Rutherford, state of Tennessee, against the peace and dignity of the state."

The court overruled the motion of the plaintiff in error to quash said third count because it failed to charge from what point to what point the intoxicating liquors were transported, or that the same was unknown to the grand jurors.

In Pope v. State, 149 Tenn. 176, 258 S.W. 775, this same question was raised by a motion in arrest, and the attorney general admitted and the court intimated that had the question been made by motion to quash it would have been granted. But that was a felony case, while the case under consideration is only for a misdemeanor, and is not governed by article 1, section 9, of the Constitution, which provides that in all criminal prosecutions "the accused hath the right * * * to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him," etc., and article 1, section 14, of the Constitution, which provides that "no person shall be put to answer any criminal charge but by presentment, indictment or impeachment," for the reason that a misdemeanor is not a "criminal charge" in the constitutional sense. McGinnis v State, 9 Humph. 43, 49 Am. Dec. 697; Bloomer v. State, 3 Sneed, 66; Hogan v. Chattanooga, 2 Shannon's Cases, 340; Trigally v. Memphis, 6 Cold. 387; Foust v. State, 12 Lea, 405; State v. Sexton, 121 Tenn. 35, 114 S.W. 494.

In 31 Corpus Juris, 687, it is said:

"Except in so far as the necessity may have been obviated by statutory provisions in indictment for serious offenses, particularly those which at common law are felonies, the averments of time and place must be repeated to every issuable and triable fact, but the same nicety is not required in indictments for minor offenses."

We are of the opinion that the court committed no error in overruling the motion to quash the presentment.

The facts, as shown by the testimony, are substantially as follows:

Two officers testified that about 8:30, one night in October 1925, they were standing on a street in Murfreesboro, near the home of the plaintiff in error, and saw him leave a buggy that was in his front yard, in which there was another party, enter his house, then go to a coal house or closet in his back yard, and return to the buggy with a glass in his hand; that they went to the buggy and found the glass, which was empty, but it had the odor of white corn whisky, and whisky was dripping from the bottom of the buggy; that they arrested plaintiff in error, searched his house and...