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21 Ala. App. 498

109 So 557

Thompson v. State

Alabama Court of Appeals

Decided June 15, 1926

Alabama Court of Appeals · decided 1926-06-15

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“common sense, common reason, and common observation.”

quoted by 3 later decisions, including German v. State, 393 So. 2d 518 - Short v. City of Birmingham

Relies on Ex Parte Drummond · 20 Ala. App. 436 - Tatum v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1926-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently September 2008

19 state decisions

110192619301940195019601970198019902000decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

SAMFORD, J.

¶1 The evidence, though circumstantial in a large measure, tended to connect the defendant with the possession of the whisky and that she had it for sale. Therefore all charges instructing affirmatively that the defendant was not guilty were properly refused. Tatum v. State, 20 Ala. App. 436, 102 So. 726.

¶2 Refused charge 32 does not state a eorreet proposition of law. Manucaption or physical dominion of whisky is not necessary to a conviction for possessing liquor under our statute. No sufficient exception is reserved to the remark of the solicitor as to authorize a review by this court.

¶3 In making out the state’s case it was relevant to prove by the officers that a search was made of defendant’s premises; that they found whisky there located; that it was near a hog pen on the premises in a brier patch; that a trail led from the house to the hog pen; that shortly before defendant was arrested automobiles frequented defendant’s house, which was isolated from other houses; and that when these automobiles would stop defendant was seen going down the trail leading to where the whisky was found. The whisky was shown to be in the constructive possession of defendant, and any fact or circumstance tending to show defendant’s connection with the whisky was relevant.

¶4 In the admission of evidence and the weight to be given the same courts and juries must use common sense, common reason, and common observation as well as a common knowledge of the usual acts of men and women under given circumstances.

¶5 We find no error in the record, and the judgment is affirmed.

¶6 Affirmed.

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