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19 Ala. App. 82

95 So 202

Gamble v. State

Alabama Court of Appeals

Decided December 19, 1922

Alabama Court of Appeals · decided 1922-12-19

Relies on 17 Ala. App. 12 - Maisel v. State · 18 Ala. App. 494 - Lindsey v. State · Atwood v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1922-12-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently June 1957

9 state decisions

401922193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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SAMFORD, J.

¶1 The . indictment was in two counts. The first charged the defendant with manufacturing whisky, and the second with possessing a still, in violation of Acts 1919, p. 1086. There was a verdict of guilty under count 2.

¶2 Section 1 of the act, supra, creates the crime and presupposes a complete still, apparatus, appliance, or device or substitute therefor to be used, etc. In order for the state to be entitled to a conviction, this fact must be established beyond a reasonable doubt.

¶3 Such still, apparatus, etc., need not -be assembled,- if the parts reasonably necessary to its pse for the purpose of manufacturing whisky are in the possession of the defendant at the time alleged in the indictment the offense is complete. Atwood v. State, 53 Ala. 508; Hutchinson v. State, 62 Ala. 3, 34 Am. Rep. 1. There might be so many parts of the'still missing as to lose its character as such, and where this is £he case it would not be a violation of section 1 of the statute.

¶4 Section 2 of Acts 1919, p. 1086, supra, fixes a rule of evidence. The possession of any part of a still, etc., is prima facie evidence of guilt and- would authorize a conclusion by the jury that the defendant, possessed the whole still or apparatus, etc., without additional proof. Maisel v. State, 17 Ala. App. 12, 81 South. 348; Lindsey v. State, 18 Ala. App. 494, 93 South. 331.

¶5 The rulings of thé trial. court in its oral charge and in refusal of written charges requested by defendant were not in accord with these views, and for these-errors the judgment of the trial court is reversed, and the cause is remanded.

¶6 Reversed and Remanded.

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