Treadwell v. State

• Decision Date: 06 July 1910
• Citation: 53 So. 290,168 Ala. 96
• Parties: TREADWELL v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

53 So. 290

168 Ala. 96

TREADWELL v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

July 6, 1910

Appeal from Circuit Court, Marengo County; John T. Lackland, Judge.

From a conviction for violating the prohibition law, Jasper Treadwell appeals. Affirmed.

The facts sufficiently appear in the opinion of the court. The solicitor in his argument said: "The proof in this case tends to show that whisky is being dispensed from the depot and in the shadow of your county capitol." The court charged the jury orally as follows: "That this party went to the shop and delivered it as porter. He had a right to do that; but when the box was open, if he took whisky out and carried it to Mr. Canterbury, that would be an illegal delivery."

I. I Canterbury, for appellant.

Alexander M. Garber, Atty. Gen., for the State.

DOWDELL C.J.

The indictment contains two counts. Under the second count, which charges that the defendant "kept for sale spirituous vinous or malt liquors," etc., the state was not restricted to proof of one act of selling as tending to support this charge, and hence could not be compelled to an election. Upon the cross-examination by the solicitor of the defendant's witness, Carter, who testified to sending three orders only through the express office for liquor for the defendant, as testing the recollection of the witness and to which the court expressly limited the inquiry, no reversible error was committed in permitting the solicitor to ask as to sending of orders for other persons. The latitude of a cross-examination rests largely in the sound discretion of the trial court, and we do not see that the defendant in the present instance was prejudiced in the exercise of this discretion by the court.

The state's witness, Tucker, having testified that he was sent by Mr. Grant with $1.50 to purchase from the defendant whisky for him, Grant, and that, having purchased the whisky from the defendant, he, witness, delivered it to Grant, it was permissible to prove by Grant that he gave the witness Tucker the $1.50, and told him to go and buy it from the defendant, and that Tucker took the money, and returned and delivered to him the bottle of whisky. The bottle of whisky in question, after having been identified by Grant as the bottle delivered to him by the witness Tucker, was produced in evidence, not having been before "opened," and Grant, while testifying as a witness, was requested to open the bottle, taste...