Richards v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 12 January 1948
• Citation: 187 Va. 1,46 S.E.2d 1
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: RICHARDS . v. COMMONWEALTH.

46 S.E.2d 1

187 Va. 1

RICHARDS .

v.COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Jan. 12, 1948.

Error to Circuit Court of Augusta County; Floridus S. Crosby, Judge.

T. J. Richards was convicted of selling beer without a license and he brings error.

Affirmed.

Before HUDGINS, C. J., and GREGORY, EGGLESTON, SPRATLEY, BUCHANAN and MILLER, JJ.

Harry V. Strayer, of Staunton, for plaintiff in error.

Harvey B. Apperson, Atty. Gen. and Ballard Baker, of Richmond, for the Commonwealth.

HUDGINS, Chief Justice.

The accused was convicted of selling beer without a license, fined $100 and sentenced to confinement in jail for thirty days on a verdict returned by the jury.

The principal assignment of error is the refusal of the trial court to give an instruction cautioning the jury against conviction on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice.

The evidence for the Commonwealth is in sharp conflict with the evidence for the accused. The jury rejected the evidence for the accused and based its verdict on the evidence for the Commonwealth, which may be summarized as follows:

The accused operates a restaurant and tourist camp on the highway about three and one-half miles east of Staunton. On December 1, 1946, E. E. Maupin and Mrs. Edith Sager, then employees of the Western State Hospital, went by bus from the hospital to accused's place of business. Upon their arrival, Mrs. Sager went to a cabin some 30 yards from the restaurant to see her sick baby, whom she had left thereunder the care of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick. Maupin went into the restaurant and bought eight bottles of Piel beer from the accused, who did not have a license to sell it. Within forty minutes Maupin joined Mrs. Sager in the cabin, taking with him two bottles of the beer, which he drank. Later, Maupin and Mrs. Sager returned to the Western State Hospital.

The accused contends that, under prior decisions of this court (Hunt v. Commonwealth, 126 Va. 815, 101 S.E. 896; Crosby v. Commonwealth, 132 Va. 518, 110 S.E. 270; Faulkner v. Town of South Boston, 139 Va. 569, 123 S.E. 358; Guthrie v. Commonwealth, 171 Va. 461, 198 S.E. 481, 119 A.L.R. 683), Maupin was an accomplice of the accused and that therefore the court committed reversible error in refusing to give an instruction warning the jury to act upon Maupin's testimony with caution.

The Commonwealth suggests that, inasmuch as Code 1942 Michie, sec. 4675(49), makes the purchaser of alcoholic beverages from a person not authorized to sell a misdemeanant, the decisions under the Layman Act, Acts 1924, c. 407, should be reviewed and that the illegal purchasers ofalcoholic beverages should not be held to be accomplices. However, in our view of the case, it is unnecessary to consider this question.

It was held, in Crosby v. Commonwealth, supra, that it was not reversible error for a trial court to refuse to give an instruction cautioning the jury against conviction on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice if the record showed substantial corroboration of the testimony of the accomplice. The facts were that ...