Thompson v. State
| Decision Date | 26 June 1947 |
| Citation | 203 S.W.2d 361,185 Tenn. 73 |
| Parties | THOMPSON v. STATE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Henry County; R. A. Elkins, Judge.
William Thompson, Jr., was convicted of the felonious transportation of intoxicating liquor and he brings error.
Assignments of error overruled and judgment affirmed.
Goodlett & Goodlett, of Clarksville, for plaintiff in error.
Nat Tipton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The defendant was convicted for the felonious transportation of six cases of intoxicating liquor and his punishment fixed at not more than three years in the State penitentiary.
The defendant is a former highway patrolman. On the day in question J. T. Phelps, Division Chief of the Highway Patrol of West Tennessee, received information by telephone at his office in Memphis that defendant would bring a load of whisky from Kentucky through Clarksville and Dover into Henry County within the next day or two. Phelps went immediately to Henry County and swore out a search warrant for the defendant. In about thirty minutes after he had obtained the search warrant the defendant drove his car from Stewart County into Henry County on the Scott Fitzhugh bridge over the Tennessee River near Paris. It seems that Phelps' informant had given him the license number and a description of the defendant's car.
The search warrant is attacked on various grounds.
This Court has recognized that officers must act with promptness in enforcing the law. The distinction must be recognized between the authority of a peace officer to arrest without a warrant for a felony on the one hand and a misdemeanor on the other. This distinction is pointed out in Dittberner v State, 155 Tenn. 102, 291 S.W. 839. In replying to a petition to rehear in that case, this Court quoted with approval from the unreported case of Howard Martin v State (Shelby Criminal, December 11, 1926), at pages 105 and 106 of 155 Tenn., at page 840 of 291 S.W., as follows:
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