State v. Duck

• Decision Date: 27 February 1947
• Docket Number: 15918.
• Citation: 41 S.E.2d 628,210 S.C. 94
• Parties: STATE v. DUCK.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

41 S.E.2d 628

210 S.C. 94

STATE v. DUCK.

No. 15918.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

February 27, 1947

John M. Schofield, of Greenville, for appellant.

Hubert E. Nolin, Co. Sol., of Greenville, for respondent.

BAKER Chief Justice.

The appellant was tried in the Greenville County Court on an indictment charging that on the 14th day of May, 1946, in said County and the State of South Carolina, he did unlawfully have in his possession eight one-half pints and two pints of alcoholic liquors which did not have South Carolina revenue stamps affixed to the container and containers thereof; and that he did wilfully and unlawfully transport said alcoholic liquors. The jury found him guilty of transporting but not of possession, and he was sentenced to the State Penitentiary at hard labor for a period of six months, or to serve a like period at hard labor upon the public works of Greenville County, such sentence being suspended upon the payment of $150.

From the judgment of guilty and sentence imposed he has appealed to this Court upon exceptions reading as follows:

'1. The Court erred in not granting a new trial because it did not charge the law of circumstantial evidence as the only evidence supporting the Appellant's having knowledge of the liquor being in the car, was circumstantial.

'2. The Court erred in not granting a new trial on the ground that finding of the jury is not supported by the evidence.

'3. The Court erred in not granting a new trial on the ground that the verdict is inconsistent; that one cannot be guilty of transporting liquor that he doesn't possess.'

The appellant was acting as a taxi driver at the time the jury convicted him of transporting illegal alcoholic liquors although he stated that he was a mechanic by trade. On this night (the 14th of May, 1946), a dance for colored people was in progress at Textile Hall. A member of the City Police Department was on duty at said Textile Hall and saw a negro boy coming down a stairway, his pockets bulging to the extent that it attracted the officer's attention. The officer called to this boy to stop but he did not, and he had to run and catch him, and on his person he found two points of illegal liquor. Upon questioning this boy, the boy told him that he was working for appellant. The officer placed this boy under arrest, and as they came out of Textile Hall the appellant drove up in a taxi, the taxi being a coach style, and sitting on the front seat with the appellant was a colored woman immediately next to him, and on the outside, on the front seat, a colored man. When the officer walked up to the taxi he told the appellant to cut the motor off and instructed the appellant to hand him the ignition key, which he did. The man who was in the taxi with the appellant and this colored woman, opened the door, jumped out of the car and ran. The officer did not know who this colored man was, and both the appellant and this colored woman disclaimed any knowledge of who he was or where he came from accept that he was on the streets of Greenville and hailed the taxicab as the appellant was driving this colored woman to Textile Hall, and got in the taxicab with them.

The officer proceeded to search the cab for illegal whiskey and found in a large pocket book belonging to the woman four one-half pints of legal whiskey and two half pints of illegal whiskey, 'and down on the floor board under the seat, two half pints of illegal whiskey.' It was for the possession and transportation of the last mentioned whiskey that the case against the appellant was submitted to the jury.

The appellant denied any knowledge of whiskey being in his car either the whiskey on the floor board or the...