Stowers v. State

Decision Date29 June 1926
Docket Number3 Div. 543
Citation109 So. 561,21 Ala.App. 501
PartiesSTOWERS v. STATE.
CourtAlabama Court of Appeals

Rehearing Denied Aug. 31, 1926

Appeal from Circuit Court, Montgomery County; Walter B. Jones Judge.

T.E Martin and Ludlow Elmore, both of Montgomery, for appellant.

Harwell G. Davis, Atty. Gen., and Chas. H. Brown, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.

SAMFORD J.

There were many objections and exceptions taken and reserved during the taking of the testimony. To pass upon each of these would extend this opinion far beyond the lengths to which a consideration of these questions is entitled. Nearly all of these exceptions are without merit, and we hold that in each instance, where they related to the res gestae, the objections were properly overruled, or the action of the court was without prejudicial error, except as shall hereinafter appear.

There being evidence from which the jury might infer that the defendant and Arthur Williams were particeps criminis in the sale of the whisky and the keeping of a place in which to sell prohibited liquors, everything said and done by Arthur Williams in furtherance of the common design was admissible in evidence against this defendant. Lancaster v. State (Ala.App.) 106 So. 609.

When the chief law enforcement officer was being examined as a witness for the state, he was permitted to testify over objections and exceptions of defendant that, shortly after the arrest of defendant and Arthur Williams, he arrived on the scene and made a search of a two-room house on a lot adjacent to the store of defendant, that in one room of this house a man named Crosby slept, that in this room he found nothing, but that in the next room he found about a truck load of bottles, siphons, glass jugs, funnels, etc., in which had been whisky, and in which there was still a little whisky. There was a wall fence built of 1 x 12 plank, more than six feet high between defendant's store and the adjoining lot on which is located the two-room house. At the northwest corner of the yard is a gate which is the entrance to the yard surrounding the two-room house. This house was shown to be the property of McIntyre Bros.

The evidence discloses that Crosby was working for defendant in his store where persons were seen and heard arranging for the purchase of liquor with Arthur Williams, who was also working for defendant. Crosby slept in the south room of the two-room house, in the other room of which was a "two-ton truck load" of bootleg paraphernalia. Williams was seen to go to the room and unlock it, thereby connecting him with the room and contents. When Williams took the three gallons of whisky from defendant's auto, it connected defendant with Williams, and when Williams went into the yard towards the room and was "on the side of this house next to town; that he was going to take the liquor and measure it up," it connected defendant with the premises and the room. A careful reading of this record discloses sufficient evidence from which the jury were authorized to conclude that defendant, Arthur Williams, Crosby, and perhaps others were in a conspiracy to violate the prohibition law. That being a fact, the two-room house, the yard, and surrounding buildings occupied by either or all of them became a part of the res gestae, and, being a conspiracy, every fact tending to prove the conspiracy, even remote in itself, is admissible in evidence.

The rule governing objections to questions and motion to exclude answers is, where the question calls for illegal evidence and the answer is responsive, an objection to the question, and an exception to the ruling of the court will present the ruling for review without a motion to exclude the answer. When the answer to the question is not responsive the trial court will not be put in error unless a motion is made to exclude the answer and exception is reserved to the action of the court in overruling the motion. Miller v. State, 16...

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6 cases
  • Cox v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
    • November 21, 1978
    ...presented affords a legal and permissible inference of the existence of a conspiracy between the appellant and Luna. Stowers v. State, 21 Ala.App. 501, 109 So. 561 (1926). III While the trial judge stated that he had "let in some evidence which in (his) mind was admissible by reason of co-c......
  • Mitchell v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Appeals
    • January 17, 1928
    ...Lyles v. State, supra; Abrams v. State, 17 Ala.App. 379, 84 So. 862; Riggan v. State, 21 Ala.App. 482, 109 So. 888; Stowers v. State, 21 Ala.App. 501, 109 So. 561; Miller v. State, 21 Ala.App. 495, 109 So. Schroeder v. State, 17 Ala.App. 246, 84 So. 309. It follows from what has been said t......
  • Leigeber v. Boike
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Appeals
    • June 1, 1954
    ...After answer counsel moved to exclude it. The motion was denied. Clearly there is no merit in this assignment. Stowers v. State, 21 Ala.App. 501, 109 So. 561; Kelley v. State, 32 Ala.App. 408, 26 So.2d 633; Jenkins v. State, Ala.App., 65 So.2d The judgment below is ordered affirmed. Affirmed. ...
  • Rogers v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Appeals
    • July 19, 1949
    ...Lyles v. State, supra; Abrams v. State, 17 Ala.App. 379, 84 So. 862; Riggan v. State, 21 Ala.App. 482, 109 So. 888; Stowers v. State, 21 Ala.App. 501, 109 So. 561; Miller v. State, 21 Ala.App. 495, 109 528; Schroeder v. State, 17 Ala.App. 246, 84 So. 309. It follows from what has been said ......
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