State v. Bowerman

• Decision Date: 03 January 1910
• Citation: 124 S.W. 41,140 Mo. App. 410
• Parties: STATE v. BOWERMAN.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

124 S.W. 41

140 Mo. App. 410

STATE v. BOWERMAN.

Springfield Court of Appeals. Missouri.

January 3, 1910.

1. INTOXICATING LIQUORS (§ 239) — PROSECUTION — INSTRUCTIONS.

In a prosecution for violating the local option law, an instruction authorizing conviction if the jury found that defendant "directly or indirectly" sold liquor without telling the jury what was meant by those words was erroneous.

2. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 1172) — HARMLESS ERROR — INSTRUCTIONS.

Where an instruction authorized conviction of defendant if he "directly or indirectly" sold whisky, error in not defining the meaning of those words was harmless where the evidence clearly showed the sale to have been made by defendant passing the liquor to the purchaser and receiving from him the money therefor.

3. WITNESSES (§ 676) — LIMITING NUMBER.

A statute allowing costs against a county or state, providing that there shall be only three witnesses to prove any one fact, does not require the court to limit the number of witnesses to three on any question that may be in issue in the trial of a case.

4. WITNESSES (§ 676) — LIMITING NUMBER — JUDICIAL DISCRETION.

The trial court may use a sound discretion in the matter of limiting the number of witnesses, especially on questions of impeachment merely.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Stone County; John T. Moore, Judge.

Perry Bowerman was convicted of a violation of the local option law, and he appeals. Affirmed.

T. L. Viles and G. W. Thornberry, for appellant. Wm. E. Renfro, for the State.

COX, J.

Information filed in the circuit court of Stone county by the prosecuting attorney, charging the defendant with violation of the local option law. The trial resulted in a conviction, from which the defendant has appealed.

No briefs are filed in this court, but we have carefully examined the entire record to ascertain whether or not the defendant has been accorded a fair trial, and whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain his conviction. We find the information to have been in approved form. The evidence showing the adoption of the local option law in Stone county is sufficient. The evidence further proves the sale of whisky within a year before the filing of the information. The instructions were unobjectionable except in one particular. The general instruction defining the offense is as follows: "Gentlemen of the jury, if you find from the evidence that Perry Bowerman, in the county of Stone and the state of Missouri, on or about the 24th day...