Case ID: nc_60-2/html/0054-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Bath,e, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE STATE vs. PETER BROWN.
    It is not a ground for arresting judgment tbat the two offences, of permit* ting a siave to go at large as'a free person, and of permitting him to keep house as á free person, are joined in tho same count of an indictment.
    'If a siave living in \house to himself, keeps a hoarding house for his own livelihood, and the master knowing it, exercises no control over him or his 1 nsiness, this is an offence within the 107fh chapter,' 29th seo. of the Revised Code. ,
    The casts of -the State vs, Duckworth, I Winston’s Rep., 243,and Sratc vs. Allan, 4 Hawk^s, 250, cited and approved.
    This was an indictment against the defendant for permitting his slave to go at large as a free'person, and for permitting him, to beep house m a free person, exercising his own 'discretion in the employment of his time. Both offences were charged in one Court. The trial wa# before Hijatii, J., at Mecklenburg Superior Court, Fall Term, 1864.
    It was in evidence that the defendant was the owner of the slave, who is 65 or 10 years old : that she lived on a lot in the town ol Charlotte, two hundred yards from where the defendant lived, who was frequently on the lot where she lived, be having a fan vard on the 'lot, and being engaged in working at that business : that she kept a boarding house for gobblers and other white persons, and was frequently seen in the market and iu the stores, buying'supplies for her household ;• that when the defendant was remonstrated with, by a policeman of theto'wn,* for permitting her to go at large_and live in this manner, he said that slid was old and unable to work, and was of little valúe to ljim while be had her, and that he, permits ted her to work her own way.
    The Judge charged the jury that if they believed, from the evidence, that the defendant knowingly permitted the' «lave to go at large as a free person, exercising her own discretion in the employment .of her time, or if he knowingly'permitted her to keep house to herself as.a free per-són, exercising her own discretion in the employment of her time, he was guilty ; but if the slave lived or .kejpt house in the house mentioned, for the purpose of attending to the business of,her master, he was not guilty.
    The jury found the defendant guilty, and from the judgment on the verdict the defendant appealed.
    Attorney General for the State. .
    No counsel for the defendant in this Court.
   Bath,e, J.

We are unable ' to discover any error committed by the Judge in the trial of the case in the Court belQw. The facts stated by the witnessed, if believed, certainly brought the case within the prohibition.of the act under which he is indicted.

The testimony was fairly submitted to-the jury in the .charge of the Court, and with, the result the defendant must be content. See State vs. Duckworth, 1 Winston’s Rep., 243.

There is no ground upon which the motion ' to arrest the judgment, can be sustained. The offences of the owner of a slave, permitting him or her to go at large as •a free person, and to keep house as a free person, are of a cognate character, and there can be no' more objection to their being included in the same count of an indictment, than there is for joining, in the same count, the •barge of an. affray, and that of a mutual assault and battery.

At all events, the objection ought to hare been taken upon a motion, to quash the indictment, and cannot be made available upon a motion in arrest of judgment. See Arch. Cr. Pl., 53, State vs. Allen, 4 Hawks, 356.

There is no error in the judgment, and it must beso certified to the Superior Court.