Smith v. State
| Decision Date | 01 August 1916 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 15 |
| Citation | 72 So. 593,15 Ala.App. 7 |
| Parties | SMITH v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Criminal Court, Jefferson County; H.P. Heflin, Judge.
Ida Smith, alias Stephens, was convicted of selling prohibited liquor on election day, and she appeals. Affirmed.
J Reese Murray, of Birmingham, for appellant.
W.L Martin, Atty. Gen., and P.W. Turner, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The defendant was convicted of selling prohibited liquor on election day in violation of the laws to suppress the evils of intemperance. The record presents nothing for review but rulings of the trial court on the evidence. A considerable number of objections are shown to have been made by the defendant's counsel during the course of the trial on the examination of the witnesses, but exceptions were reserved to the rulings of the court in only a few instances, and but two of these are insisted upon in brief of counsel filed here.
It is insisted as to one of these rulings that the court committed error that requires a reversal in not permitting the defendant's counsel to ask the state's witness Thorpe on cross-examination, "You did not go after any other white woman, did you?" The witness Thorpe, according to his testimony, which was not in conflict with the other evidence in the case, had been employed by the sheriff's office to assist the officers in making cases against supposed or suspected violators of the law by making or undertaking to make, purchases of prohibited liquors from the persons under suspicion, by the direction of or under the orders of the officers in charge of apprehending this class or character of violators of the law, and reporting back to or informing the officers. This witness (Thorpe) had testified to having engaged in the transaction in question the basis of the prosecution, under the specific direction of a named deputy sheriff (one Austin), who was also examined as a witness, and testified to having given Thorpe the specific direction testified to by him in respect to securing evidence against this defendant by going to the hotel kept by her for the purpose of purchasing prohibited liquor from her. Defendant's counsel was permitted to cross-examine the witness Thorpe at considerable length about the transaction, and his relations with the sheriff's office and his interest in making the case. Under these circumstances, we cannot say that the trial court committed reversible error in restricting the cross-examination of this witness to the...
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