Smith v. State

• Decision Date: 06 January 1945
• Citation: 184 S.W.2d 390,182 Tenn. 158
• Parties: SMITH et al. v. STATE.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

184 S.W.2d 390

182 Tenn. 158

SMITH et al. v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

January 6, 1945

Error to Circuit Court, Greene County; Shelbourne Ferguson, Judge.

Harold Smith and another were convicted of felonious transportation of intoxicating liquor, and they bring error.

Reversed and remanded.

Dodson & Dodson and T. R. Bandy, both of Kingsport, for plaintiffs in error.

Nat Tipton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

GREEN Chief Justice.

The defendants were convicted for the felonious transportation of intoxicating liquor and their punishment fixed at a year and a day in the State penitentiary.

The conviction was had on the testimony of a highway patrolman who said that he stopped the car in which the two defendants were riding on a road leading out of Greeneville and found in the car several cases of whiskey. Objection was made to his testimony on the ground that his stopping of the automobile and arrest of its occupants was unlawful and his testimony therefore inadmissible. We think this point is well made. The case is ruled by Cox v. State, Tenn.Sup., 181 S.W.2d 338. Without going into the details of that case, the arresting officer testified that he stopped the defendant's car for the purpose of ascertaining whether he had a driver's license. The officer was a highway patrolman and was entitled to stop the car for the purpose stated. The Court, however, found that this claim of the patrolman was a mere subterfuge, that he really stopped the car to find out if it was transporting whiskey, and that under such circumstances the officer's testimony that whiskey was found in the car was inadmissible. The conviction was accordingly reversed.

It is equally clear from the evidence in this case that the claim of stoppage of defendants' car was for the purpose of learning whether they had a driver's license or registration receipt was a subterfuge. This officer testified that he was driving along with a man named Homer Smith, who was an inspector for the Federal Alcohol Tax Unit. He said 'We were just working the road,' and again, 'We were investigating cars hauling whiskey and working the general traffic together; anything that came along under my jurisdiction is under his jurisdiction.' Explaining his jurisdiction, the patrolman said, 'Well we have control of the speeding of cars, the driver's licenses, and the registration receipts of cars.'

Just before the defendants' car was stopped, this officer testified that he had...