Case Title: State v. Goff

Citation: 142 S.E.2d 142, 264 N.C. 563

Docket Number: 4880

State: north-carolina

Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Date: 1965-06-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
142 S.E.2d 142 (1965)
264 N.C. 563
STATE
v.
Arthur GOFF.
No. 91.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.
June 2, 1965.
*143 Atty. Gen. T. W. Bruton, Staff Atty. Andrew A. Vanore, Jr., for the State, appellant.
H. Horton Rountree, Greenville, for defendant, appellee.
*144 DENNY, Chief Justice.
The question for determination on this appeal is simply this: Did the court below commit an error in vacating the sentence imposed by the Superior Court of Sampson County for an escape while the defendant was serving a sentence which had been vacated and a new trial ordered before the sentence for the escape was imposed? We think the question must be answered in the affirmative.
G.S. § 148-45 in pertinent part reads as follows: "* * * Any prisoner serving a sentence imposed upon conviction of a felony who escapes or attempts to escape from the State prison system shall for the first such offense be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than two years. * * *"
This Court, in State v. Garrell, 82 N.C. 580, 581, recognized the rule that one cannot take it upon himself to reverse or ignore an erroneous judgment. The prisoner was delivered to the custody of a constable, pursuant to an erroneous judgment. The constable negligently allowed the prisoner to escape. In holding the constable liable, the Court said:
"The judgment pronounced was at most merely erroneous, and not void. * * *
A similar result was reached in State v. Armistead, 106 N.C. 639, 10 S.E. 872.
In the case of Bayless v. United States (9th C.C.A.), 141 F.2d 578, the defendant had been convicted of several violations of federal law, and defendant had not been afforded counsel nor had he intelligently waived counsel. He was committed pursuant to the conviction and subsequently attempted to escape. The Ninth Circuit Court held that he could be convicted of an attempt to escape even though his detention was irregular in that he had not been afforded counsel. The Court quoted with approval from an opinion by the Fifth Circuit Court in the case of Aderhold v. Soileau, 5 Cir., 67 F.2d 259, as follows:
*145 The Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari in Bayless v. United States, 322 U.S. 748, 64 S. Ct. 1157, 88 L. Ed. 1580.
In Tann v. Commonwealth, 190 Va. 154, 56 S.E.2d 47, the defendant had been convicted of a number of felonies. He escaped from the State Penitentiary while serving a sentence for one of these offenses. He was recaptured and tried upon a bill of indictment for escape. He pleaded the unlawfulness of his imprisonment on the ground that he had been denied due process of law in that he did not have the assistance of counsel upon his trials. The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia said:
See 70 A.L.R.2d Anno.: Justification for Escape, page 1430, et seq., where the cases from many jurisdictions have been collected.
We hold that the sentence imposed in the Superior Court of Sampson County at the January-February Session 1965 on the charge of escape was a valid sentence irrespective of the outcome of the new trial ordered by this Court; and that the order of Cowper, J., entered in a habeas corpus proceeding in Pitt County on 26 March 1965, to the effect that the defendant Goff "is being illegally confined under sentence imposed in Docket No. 4880, Sampson County," was erroneous and such order is reversed and set aside. When this opinion has been certified down, whether the defendant has been retried or not as directed by Judge Cowper's order entered on 28 January 1965, and regardless of the outcome of such trial, this cause will be remanded to Sampson County for the imposition of a proper sentence on the conviction for escape. State v. Fain, 250 N.C. 117, 108 S.E.2d 68.
The order entered below releasing the defendant from the sentence imposed in the Superior Court of Sampson County for escape is
Reversed.