State v. McKeen

• Citation: 130 S.E. 806,100 W.Va. 476
• Decision Date: 24 November 1925
• Docket Number: 5391.
• Parties: STATE v. MCKEEN.
• Court: Supreme Court of West Virginia

130 S.E. 806

100 W.Va. 476

STATE v. MCKEEN.

No. 5391.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

November 24, 1925

Submitted October 6, 1925.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 15, 1926.

Syllabus by the Court.

A search warrant, containing formal parts and properly describing the place to be searched and the articles to be seized, need not name or describe the owner or occupant of the premises.

Error to Circuit Court, Marshall County.

Roy McKeen was convicted of possession of a moonshine still, and he brings error. Affirmed.

D. B Evans and Martin Brown, both of Moundsville, and Charles J Smith, of Parsons, for plaintiff in error.

Howard B. Lee, Atty. Gen., and R. A. Blessing, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

LITZ J.

Acting under a search warrant, Alonzo Prince, deputy commissioner of prohibition, accompanied by five other state and federal officers, on December 17, 1923, searched the dwelling house and premises of the defendant in Sand Hill district, Marshall county, where they found one complete 30-gallon still, 2 gallons of moonshine liquor, 24 quarts of home brew, 100 gallons of mash, and 25 gallons of wine.

The defendant was tried and convicted in September, 1924, upon an indictment charging him with unlawfully and feloniously owning, operating, maintaining, possessing, and having an interest in a certain apparatus, mechanism, and device for the manufacture of intoxicating liquors, commonly known as a moonshine still. To the judgment of the court punishing him by a fine of $300 and confinement for 2 years in the penitentiary, he prosecutes error.

The defendant contends that the search warrant was void, and that the evidence thereby secured was improperly admitted against him. The warrant, with a double aspect, was issued under section 9, chapter 32A, Code, commanding (1) the arrest of "John Doe," charged with unlawfully manufacturing selling, offering, exposing, keeping, and storing for sale and barter intoxicating liquors as defined by section 1 of chapter 13, Acts of 1913, contrary to the laws of the state of West Virginia; and (2) the search of "that certain house and premises, located on the headwaters of Wherry run known as the John Gardner farm, on Sand Hill road, in Sand Hill district, in Marshall county, W.Va.," the seizure of "all liquors found therein, including any mixture of fermenting substances and materials commonly known as mash, together with all vessels, bar fixtures,...