Case ID: nc-app_18/html/0318-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "BALEY, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. JOHN KNOX DORSETT
    No. 7326SC375
    (Filed 23 May 1973)
    Burglary and Unlawful Breakings § 5; Criminal Law § 60; Larceny § 7— sufficiency of fingerprint, evidence
    The State’s evidence was sufficient for the jury in a prosecution for the breaking and entering of a home and the larceny of property therefrom, including a television set, where it tended to show that immediately after the theft defendant’s fingerprint was found on a television rotor which had been on top of the set which was stolen, and that defendant was unknown to the victim and had no permission or lawful reason to enter the victim’s residence.
    Appeal by defendant from Friday, Judge, 11 December 1972 Session of Superior Court of Mecklenburg County.
    Defendant was tried upon a bill of indictment which charged felonious breaking or entering and felonious larceny.
    The State introduced evidence which tended to show the following: The locked home of Edward Farris Edwards on Island Point Road, Charlotte, North Carolina, was broken into on 17 December 1971 and a number of items with an approximate value of $2,500.00 were removed. Among the items taken was a table type television set. A roto-tenna which was used with this television was on top of the set when Mrs. Edwards left the home, but when she returned several hours later, the television was gone and the roto-tenna was on the floor of the living room where the television set had been located. Defendant was not known to Mrs. Edwards and he had never been given permission to enter the house. An officer secured a fingerprint from the roto-tenna immediately after the theft. This fingerprint was compared with known fingerprints of defendant, and an expert testified that they were identical.
    
      Defendant offered no evidence.
    The jury returned a verdict of guilty as charged. Defendant appeals from a judgment of imprisonment entered upon the verdict.
    
      Attorney General Morgan by Assistant Attorney General Charles A. Lloyd for the State.
    
    
      E. Clayton Selvey, Jr., for defendant appellant.
    
   BALEY, Judge.

The sole contention of defendant concerns whether there was sufficient evidence to connect him with the breaking or entering and larceny, thereby requiring submission of the case to the jury.

Evidence of fingerprint identification when such fingerprints were secured from the roto-tenna in the Edwards home immediately after the commission of the crime combined with the fact that defendant was unknown to Mrs. Edwards and had no permission or lawful reason to enter her private residence was amply sufficient to take this case to the jury. State v. Helms, 218 N.C. 592, 12 S.E. 2d 243; State v. Phillips, 15 N.C. App. 74, 189 S.E. 2d 602, cert. denied, 281 N.C. 762; State v. Pittman, 10 N.C. App. 508, 179 S.E. 2d 198.

The circumstances under which defendant’s fingerprints were found lead inescapably to the conclusion that they could have been impressed only at the time the crime was committed, and this is sufficient to support a conviction. State v. Blackmon, 6 N.C. App. 66, 169 S.E. 2d 472.

Defendant relies upon State v. Smith, 274 N.C. 159, 161 S.E. 2d 449, which is clearly distinguishable. In Smith there was no evidence that a crime was actually committed. In addition, there was ample opportunity for the fingerprint to have been impressed upon the wallet under circumstances not related to the loss of the money.

In this trial, we find

No error.

Judges Brock and Britt concur.