Case Name: SLATE vs WILLIAM HART & AL.
Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
Jurisdiction: North Carolina
Decision Date: 1844-06
Citations: 4 Ired. 222
Docket Number: 
Parties: SLATE vs WILLIAM HART & AL.
Judges: 
Reporter: North Carolina Reports
Volume: 26
Pages: 222–224

Head Matter:
SLATE vs WILLIAM HART & AL.
Under the Act of Assembly, passed in 1842, establishing the County of Union, an indictment against citizens of Union, pending in Anson Superior Court at the Fall Term 1843, should have been transferred to the Superior Court of Union, tho’ the place where the offence was committed was still in An-son County.
Appeal from an interlocutory order of the Superior Court of Anson County, at Spring Term, 1844, his Honor Judge Nash presiding. ,
This was an indictment against the defendants for assault and battery in shooting the prosecutor’s slave. The offence was committed in what is still the Comity of Anson, and the defendants both lived in what is now the Comity of Union. The indictment was found at Spring Term, 1843. At Fall Teim, 1843, the defendants moved to have the cause removed to the Superior Court of Union Coimty, according to the act of Assembly constituting a Superior Court of law in that comity. The Solicitor for the State opposed the motion, and the Court at that time declined to decide the question. At Spring Term, 1844, the motion for removal was renewed; and the Court, being of opinion that the jurisdiction .of the cause belonged to the Superior Court of Union and not to that of Anson, accordingly ordered it to be removed. From this order the Solicitor for the State prayed an appeal, which was granted, to the Supreme Court.
Attorney General for the State.
No counsel for the defendants.

Opinion:
Ruffin, C. J.
In 1842 the Legislature established the County of Union, composed of parts of the counties Mecklenburg and Anson. By a supplemental act, ch. 13, Superior and County Courts are established therein; and the first term of the former was to be in February, 1844. By the 9th section it is, amongst other things, enacted " that all indictments and criminal proceedings against the citizens of Union, which shall be pending in the Superior Court of An-son, shall be transferred from the Fall Term, 1843, of Anson Superior Court to the Superior Court of Union.
The defendants were indicted in Anson Superior Court, at the term which was held on the second Monday of March, 1843, for an assault laid to have been committed in Anson. Both of the defendants lived in Union County, and were citizens thereof at the time of the alleged offence, and continually since. At Fall Term, 1843, they moved the Court, on that ground, that the case should be removed to Union for trial. The motion was opposed on behalf of the State, on the ground that the place, at which the offence was committed, was in fact not in Union, but was still in Anson County. But the Court allowed the motion, and the Solicitor for the State appealed.
We think the removal was proper. Although offences, now committed in Anson by the inhabitants of Union, are cognizable in the Courts of the former county, yet the Act L explicit, that, for offences committed before the Fall Term, 1843, of Anson Superior Court, the proceedings at that term, pending in that Court against the citizens of Union, should be sent from Anson to Union for trial.
There is no allusion made to the place of the commission of the offence; whether in that part of the territory, originally forming Anson County, which should fall into the new County, or in the part continuing in the old one. The residence of the defendants, alone, determines the jurisdiction by the plain words of the act. There is nothing to authorize, in the construction of it, a departure from the obvious import of its terms. On the contrary, it was meant for the ease of cp;izen by allowing him a trial at home. Besides, it might have been an object with the Legislature to transfer such cases to the new County, where there was no business, as a means of relieving the overburthened dockets of Anson, for the disposing of which the ordinary and regular terms were found inadequate.
Per Curiam, Ordered to be certified to the Superior Court that there was no error in the interlocutory order appealed from.