Welch v. State
| Decision Date | 16 February 1926 |
| Docket Number | No. 24561.,24561. |
| Citation | 197 Ind. 258,150 N.E. 761 |
| Parties | WELCH v. STATE. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Martin Circuit Court; Milton S. Hastings, Judge.
Rose Welch was convicted of transporting intoxicating liquor in violation of Acts 1923, c. 34, and she appeals. Reversed, with directions.
Alvin Padgett, of Washington, Ind., and F. Gwin, of Shoals, for appellant.
U. S. Lesh, Atty. Gen., for the State.
Appellant was charged by affidavit and convicted in the court below of transporting intoxicating liquor in an automobile. Acts 1923, p. 108. Upon appeal to this court the errors assigned and relied on are the overruling of her motion to suppress certain evidence and the overruling of her motion for a new trial. The overruling of appellant's motion to suppress the evidence was not a matter for an independent assignment of error, but was properly a cause for a new trial, and it was so specified. Chappelle v. State (Ind. Sup.) 149 N. E. 163;Volderauer v. State, 143 N. E. 674, 195 Ind. 415, 424.
In support of her motion for a new trial appellant has confined her insistence to three specifications: (1) Error of the court in refusing to sustain her motion to suppress certain evidence; (2) verdict of the jury not sustained by the evidence; and (3) verdict of the jury contrary to law.
It will be observed that appellant and her husband were, by separate affidavits, separately charged with the same offense, jointly tried, separate verdicts returned, and separate judgments rendered. The trial court sustained the motion to quash the search warrant, but overruled the motion to suppress upon other grounds.
Inasmuch as there is practically no conflict in the evidence, and in view of our conclusion thereon, we deem it unnecessary for this court to pass upon the action of the trial court in refusing to suppress certain evidence, or to express our views upon the peculiar facts and circumstances indicating a want of good faith on the part of the officers who originated the pretended search warrant as a camouflage protection of deputy sheriffs against liability in case they failed to realize on their suspicions or otherwise transgress the law.
The undisputed evidence upon which appellant was convicted may be of some interest. On September 1, 1923, and for years prior thereto, appellant and her husband resided at Washington, Ind., as husband and wife. In the morning of that day appellant, with her husband, in his Durant touring car, left their home for Trinity Springs, Martin county, where they arrived at about 10 o'clock in the morning. They left the Springs on their return trip home, reaching Loogootee some time between 2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon. On approaching Loogootee a Ford car occupied by three men passed them going in the same direction, and when a few hundred feet ahead that car stopped, two men got out, one on each side of the road, and threw up their hands motioning the car in which appellant was riding to stop. One of these men had a revolver in his hand, which he flourished in a threatening manner. Appellant's husband was driving the Durant car, and while passing between the two men each stepped on the running board on his side of the car and demanded the driver to stop, which he failed to do until one of the men reached in the car and turned off the...
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