Thompson v. State, 8749.

• Decision Date: 12 May 1932
• Docket Number: No. 8749.,8749.
• Citation: 174 Ga. 804,164 S.E. 202
• Parties: THOMPSON . v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

174 Ga. 804

164 S.E. 202

THOMPSON .

v.STATE.

No. 8749.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

May 12, 1932.

Syllabus by the Court.

The plaintiff in error was tried on an accusation charging him with having in his possession and control a quantity of intoxicating liquors, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty. The defendant made a motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and he excepted. In two grounds of the motion error is assigned upon the admission of certain evidence which the state insists tended to show that the allegations in the accusation as to the possession and control of the liquors in question were true, and that the defendant was guilty as charged. A part of this evidence was objected to upon the ground that it was obtained by an unlawful search of the defendant's house, in violation of certain specified por-tions of the State and Federal Constitutions. Held that the assignments of error in the two grounds of the motion referred to are not of such a character as to give this court jurisdiction of the case. The jurisdiction of the questions raised in this record is vested by our Constitution in the Court of Appeals.

Error from City Court of Macon County; C. H. Hall, Judge.

C. A. Thompson was convicted of having in his possession and control a quantity of intoxicating liquors, and he brings error.

Transferred to the Court of Appeals.

R. Douglas Feagin, of Macon, for plaintiff in error.

John Y. Roberts, Sol., of Macon, for the State.

BECK, P. J.

The eighth and ninth grounds of the motion for a new trial in this case are as follows:

"7. Because the movant contends that the court erred as follows: On the direct examination of the State's witness, Wesley Jones, by the solicitor, the following question was asked the witness by the solicitor: 'Q. Whose whisky was it you poured out?' 'A. It must have been his (referring to Thompson, the defendant).' Defendant's counsel objected to the answer of the witness, stating to the court, which was a fact, that the witness had just testified that he did not know whose whisky it was. The court overruled the objection to the evidence and allowed the evidence to remain in, which ruling of the court movant respectfully submits is error, and avers that the court erred in not ruling out the evidence objected to."

"8. Because the court erred, movant contends, as follows: After the witness R. H. Raley had testified that he met the defendant, C. A. Thompson, as he was going out to his home and as Thompson was coming to Macon, and that he (Raley) had a criminal warrant for Thompson's house, and had testified that Wesley Jones was sitting in a swing on the porch and when he saw the officers coming he locked the door and ran in the house, and that the witness jerked open the screen door and jerked the hook off the door in doing so, and entered the house and found Jones pouring out liquor out of a pitcher in the bathroom, the defendant, through his counsel, objected to the evidence of the witness that he found liquor at the house, and moved to rule out the evidence of witness Raley, on the ground that it was inadmissible, since it appeared from the testimony of the witness that the search of the defendant's home without a warrant and breaking into his home was a violation of defendant's constitutional rights under the constitution of the United States, which protects him against illegal and unauthorized searches of his home; that it was a violation of his constitutional rights under the Federal constitution, that while counsel recognized that the Georgia courts have held to the contrary, yet the defendant contended that under the Federal constitution guaranteeing the right of people to be secure in their houses against unreasonable searches, that the search in this case was a violation of the defendant's constitutional rights under the Federal constitution. Movant contends that said...