The Jug In The Field

Acting on information they had received, federal revenue officers went without a warrant to a house where a man lived with his father and hid 50 to 100 yards away. They saw the man hand a bottle to another man. When an alarm was raised, both ran. During the chase the man dropped a gallon jug, which broke, and the officers found it held moonshine whiskey. The other man threw away a bottle containing whiskey, and officers found a jar with whiskey in it that had been thrown from the house. All of the containers were found outside the house. The defence argued that the officers were trespassers on the father's land acting without a warrant, so their evidence came from an unlawful search and seizure and should have been excluded.