Trent v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 27 January 1931
• Citation: 156 S.E. 567
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: TRENT. v. COMMONWEALTH.

156 S.E. 567

TRENT.

v.COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Jan. 27, 1931.

Error to Circuit Court, Buckingham County.

W. B. Trent was convicted of the unlawful manufacture of ardent spirits, and he brings error.

Affirmed.

A. L. Pitts, Jr., of Arvonia, and Hubard & Boatwright, of Buckingham, for plaintiff in error.

John R. Saunders, Atty. Gen., Collins Denny, Jr., and Edwin H. Gibson, Asst, Attys. Gen., for the Commonwealth.

HOLT, J.

From the evidence it appears that some of the officers of Buckingham county had reason to suspect that a still was being operated there, and in April, 1929, went to look for it. They found a boiler set up and some mash prepared. This was about 10 o'clock at night. The still was not in operation, and no one was seen near it. These officers hid themselves, and remained on watch till about 10 o'clock next morning, when the accused, a negro, and two white men appeared. Each of them was carrying certain articles. Trent had a bag filled with empty fruit jars which he put down some distance from the still. They built a fire under the boiler, and were busy about it when one of the officers unwittingly gave an alarm. All ran. Trent and a white man named Stinson were captured. The other fugitive got away. A search about the place was then made, but no still worm was found.

In due course an indictment followed. It contained two counts. One charges the unlawful manufacture of ardent spirits, and the other the unlawful possession of a still, still cap, etc. It is with a verdict based upon the first count alone that we are now concerned.

The verdict was: "We, the jury, find the accused guilty as charged in the first count of the indictment and fix his punishment at six months in jail and a fine of $25.00."

This is the testimony as to what occurred at the time of the arrest:

R. G. Garnett, a county officer, testified that, when the presence of the officers became known, all of the men at the still ran. Trent and Stinson were caught, but the third man got away. As the accused and his companion approached the still, "they laid down what they were carrying on their backs and got up a turn of wood apiece, and began stirring about the place, and some of them started a fire under the boiler." After the arrest, "they went up the path and found two or three bags which contained fruit jars, one of which the defendant had carried but they were not brought down to the site of the still, but were on the side of the path near there and thatthere was no whisky found at the still. All of them went to work around the still, built the fire under the still, stirred the mash, all of them worked looked like each one knew his business. The water in the boiler was steaming."

Herbert Goodman, another officer, said "that the officers stayed concealed until about 10:00 next day when two men approached the still; that they came from the opposite side from where witness was hid and that in the woods and bushes he did not see but two, but Trent put down the bag and picked up sticks of wood and carried them to the still and they soon had a fire."

R. E. Newton, town sergeant of Dillwyn, saw Trent and two white men go to the still. "Trent had a sack on his back, but that he did not carry it to the still, but laid it down on the path some distance from the still; that some of the men, he could not see which one as he was seventy-five or one hundred yards away, started a fire at the still."

The accused testified on his own behalf. He said "that on the morning when the raid was made a man whom he did not know met him and Stinson in path on and told him he wanted him to go down in the woods with him a little way to help carry some bundles that he had in a sack and that he and Stinson went down there, he carried the sack that the white man had, and down in the woods they picked up two more sacks with glass jars in them, there being a case of glass jars in the sack which he carried; that when they approached the still the man told him what was done there in the bottom and he would not carry the jars down to the still but set them down on the side of the path where he was and went on down to the still and sat down on a barrel; that before they had been there but a few minutes one of the officers fired a shot and all of them ran. That the white man that he went down there with said that he was to be met there by some other parties and that as he did not find them there he gathered up some leaves and sticks and made a little fire "just to let the other boys know I have been here."

"That witness (Trent) took no part in the operation in any shape or form and had nothing to do with the still; that he knew that a bunch of men, five or six, from Powhatan county, were operating a still in that vicinity, but he did not know the names; that he had seen the man. he went down there with before, but he did not know who he was except that his first name was Percy."

He further stated that he had on other occasions aided officers in securing evidence against violators of the prohibition laws, and had been requested by Mr. Hughes, a state prohibition inspector, to keep him informed of such unlawful activities as might come to his attention, that his presence at the still on this occasion was for the purpose of securing such evidence, and that he had already

come into possession of information which led him to believe a still was being operated in that vicinity.

Mr. Hughes said that Trent, on two occasions, had furnished evidence of this kind, and that a day or two before his arrest he had told him that there was a still where that captured was found. Hughes then told Trent to investigate this matter and let him know when a run was to be made. This Trent promised to do, but asked Hughes to keep quiet, since he did not wish his name to be known should an arrest be made.

Had the jury a right to disregard Trent's explanation of his presence at the still? This detective knew his associate who was captured, but the man who got away was a stranger to him. He said that he sat around and did nothing beyond making a little fire with sticks and leaves to "let the boys know that he had been there." As a matter of fact, the only fire built was that under the boiler. Garnett said that they went about this business in a businesslike way, everybody seemed to know what he was doing, and that the boiler was steaming when they were interrupted.

When Trent was overtaken and arrested, it would have been very natural for him to explain at that time or soon afterwards the purpose of his presence, but he did not. No one of these facts, nor all of them combined, are sufficient to have made the jury of necessity discredit his defense, but they unquestionably are amply sufficient to throw doubt upon his explanation. The jury heard him testify, and manifestly did not believe him. They are supported in this conclusion by the trial judge. They were of opinion that the prima facie presumption of guilt, declared by statute to follow one's presence at a still in operation, had not been overcome, and in this we find no error. It is hazardous to "run with the hounds and hold with the hare."

It is said that the indictment charges intoxicants were manufactured when such was not the case; but it is to be remembered that manufacturing is a continuing process, and the state is not obligated to wait until it is completed before proceeding to punish those who in this manner violate its laws, nor to concede that only a misdemeanor has been committed up to the moment when alcohol actually begins to flow.

People v. Nanninga, 213 Mich. 354, 181 N. W. 1014, 1015, is a case in which the defendant possessed all the necessary paraphernalia but had produced no finished product. The Michigan statute (Pub. Acts 1919, No. 53, § 2) provides that: "It shall be unlawful for any person * * * to manufacture * * * intoxicating liquors." In that case the courtsaid: "Many definitions of the word 'manufacture' are to be found In the books, but most of them are of little help upon the question presented; for we must construe the meaning here, having in mind its sense in connection with the prohibition imposed. The purpose of this statute is to prohibit all manufacture of intoxicating liquors, except for the permitted purposes, and it reaches and stops all steps In the actual process of manufacturing, up to and including the finished product. That respondent was actually engaged in making whisky is conceded; but it is claimed that, because his efforts to that end were arrested by the arrival of the police, he is not guilty of manufacturing. The construction contended for is too narrow, and would lead to the absurdity that the law only prohibits the finished product, and not any of the intermediate steps or the energy applied and the means employed toward accomplishing...