W.W. and Gilreath C. Davis, brothers, running a general merchandise store on the Pineville road between Charlotte and Griffith’s station, were acquitted Saturday afternoon in Superior court of the charge of having liquor in their possession for sale. It was on the premises of the Davis men that officers, rural and city, found about 300 quarts of fine bottle-in-bond whiskey a few weeks ago, stored in two automobiles. The jury didn’t believe the men were connected with the large supply of Scotch, gin and rye whiskey found on their property.
The acquittal of the defendants came after the jury had listened for two hours to what was declared to have been one of the most power legal presentations and persuasive arguments heard in the court house in years from the tongue of D.B. Smith, cousel for the defense. Mr. Smith was associated with J. Clyde Stancill in the defense of the two merchants.
The State expected to convict the men on the theory that they had guilty knowledge a to the presence of the whiskey on their premises. It was understood that the automobiles did not belong to them, that, rather, they belonged to parties in Savannah to whom also, it was supposed the whiskey also belonged. The State’s contention was that this whiskey from Savannah was enroute to local distributing agencies and that the cars had been stopped on the premises of the defendants merely to cover up the tracks of local blind tiger operators, that the Davis men were parties to this transaction to the extent at least that they gave their consent to store the whiskey-laden cars on their premises.
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From the front page of The Charlotte News, Sunday, Nov. 20, 1921
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