Title: State v. Fowler

State: north-carolina

Issuer: North Carolina Supreme Court

Document:

150 S.E.2d 731 (1966) 268 N.C. 430 STATE v. Warner FOWLER, Alias Johnny Ringo Graham. No. 333. Supreme Court of North Carolina. November 2, 1966. Atty. Gen. T. W. Bruton, Asst. Atty. Gen. James F. Bullock, and Asst. Atty. Gen. Millard R. Rich, Jr., for the State. Herbert B. Hulse and W. Harrell Everett, Jr., Goldsboro, for defendant. *732 BRANCH, Justice. Defendant contends and attempts to show by his evidence that the killing was accidental. He assigns as error that portion of the judge's charge as to accidental killing, in which the court stated: Here the learned trial judge apparently by inadvertence classified defendant's assertion of accidental killing with the defenses of self-defense or killing in the heat of passion, both affirmative defenses which a defendant must prove to the satisfaction of the jury. State v. Beachum, 220 N.C. 531, 17 S.E.2d 674. A very lucid statement of the law relative to burden of proof in cases where defendant asserts that a killing was accidental is found in State v. Phillips, 264 N.C. 508, 142 S.E.2d 337, where Sharp, J., speaking for the Court, said: Hence, the defendant is not required to prove "to the satisfaction of the jury" that the killing was accidental, and where, as here, the charge so shifted the burden of proof to the defendant it bore too heavily on him. This assignment of error is sustained. Defendant also assigns as error the court's instruction as to the intensity of proof required of him to satisfy the jury of facts in excuse, justification or mitigation of the homicide. In this connection, the trial judge charged: The above portion of the court's charge is almost identical in content to the charge given by the trial judge in the case of State v. Prince, 223 N.C. 392, 26 S.E.2d 875. The Court in holding that the charge constituted reversible error in the Prince case, said: This decision has been approved and upheld by the Court in the recent per curiam decision in State v. Matthews, 263 N.C. 95, 138 S.E.2d 819. *734 The assignments of error herein discussed are meritorious and are clearly sustained by the decisions of this Court. We deem any discussion of the other assignments of error unnecessary, since there must be a New trial.