State v. Medlin

Seawell, J. Those who engage in the unlawful act of manufacturing intoxicating liquors do not set up signs with index fingers pointing to the location of the still, or mash, or products of distillation. Almost always, unless the party is found in the act, conviction depends in large measure on circumstantial evidence; and for that reason each case is sui generis. We need not expect to pull out of the card index cases exactly on all fours with that under review. However, examination of the following cases which deal with comparable circumstances will, we think, fully sustain the conclusion reached by the court below that the evidence in the instant case should go to the jury. S. v. Crouse, 182 N.C. 835, 108 S.E. 911; S. v. Clark, 183 N.C. 733, 110 S.E. 641; S. v. Meyers, 190 N.C. 239, 129 S.E. 600; S. v. Weston, 197 N.C. 25, 147 S.E. 618. The tools and materials found in the defendant’s barn or crib, the snips with the adhering shreds of copper, the solder and rolls similar to *304 those found at the still, the freshly- soldered seams of the newly made still found at the end of the path leading from the crib to the still, the nearby presence of’ the peach mash, — all these are circumstances, some of them novel, which in their combination generate inferences of the defendant’s guilt, — strong or weak it is not our province to say, — which were properly left to the jury. S. v. Massengill, 228 N.C. 612; S. v. Davenport, 227 N.C. 475, 42 S.E. 2d 686; S. v. Gentry, 228 N.C. 643, 648. We find no error in the trial. No error.