Title: State v. Phillips
Citation: 142 S.E.2d 337, 264 N.C. 508
Docket Number: 745
State: north-carolina
Issuer: north-carolina Supreme Court
Date: June 2, 1965

142 S.E.2d 337 (1965)
264 N.C. 508
STATE
v.
Patricia McLawhorn PHILLIPS.
No. 745.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.
June 2, 1965.
Atty. Gen. T. W. Bruton and Deputy Atty. Gen. Harry W. McGalliard, for the State.
Arthur Vann and Everett, Everett &amp; Everett, Durham, for defendant, appellant.
*338 SHARP, Justice.
About 9:00 p. m. on October 23, 1964, defendant killed her husband with one shot from a pistol as he sat in the driver's seat of an automobile parked in the driveway of their home. The deceased was drunk.
The State's evidence, ample to withstand defendant's motions for nonsuit, tends to show that defendant shot the deceased when he pushed her out of the automobile as she attempted to get in it. A deputy sheriff testified that when he arrived in response to a call defendant said to him, "I shot my husband and you can do what you please with me, I don't give a G____d____"; that she said he would not let her do what she wanted to do, so she shot him; that she said, "You can carry me to jail, do whatever you please." So far as the record discloses defendant made this statement spontaneously without any questioning by the officer. The next morning the sheriff visited her in jail. He testified as follows:
Defendant, without assigning any reason whatever, objected and excepted to the admission of the testimony of both the sheriff and the deputy sheriff. To be sure, this evidence was relevant, and no reason appears why it was not competent. The statements were freely and voluntarily made. Defendant was told that anything she said might be used against her. State v. Upchurch, 264 N.C. 343, 141 S.E.2d 528; State v. Egerton, 264 N.C. 328, 141 S.E.2d 515. Whether defendant was then represented by counsel the record does not disclose. The matter of counsel was not mentioned. It is implicit in this evidence, however, that defendant knew of her right to counsel. One of her character witnesses, an attorney of many years' experience, testified that he had represented her previously.
Defendant's evidence tends to show: She acquired the pistol for protection during the absence of her husband, a traveling salesman, from home. It had been registered with the Clerk of the Superior Court since December 30, 1953. Because of prowlers in the vicinity she never leaves the house after dark without the pistol. Her lot abuts upon a railroad track at the rear, and a number of large trees make the premises dark. On the night in question she put the pistol in her pocketbook when she left the house to go to her daughter's. Outside, she was surprised to find her husband in the car. She told him he had had too much to drink to drive and reached over to take the keys from the car. He shoved her backward, but she continued her efforts to get the keys. He jerked her violently, and she fell forward onto him. She did not hear the gun go off, but immediately observed him go limp. She straightway went into the house and said to her daughter, "Honey, there's been a terrible accident. Our daddy's been shot. Call an ambulance and the sheriff."
Defendant does not rely on self-defense. She contends that the shooting was entirely accidental. She testified: "I am not contending or saying that I shot Harry in self-defense. If I pulled that trigger I know nothing about it."
*339 The trial judge charged the jury, inter alia, as follows:
A defendant's assertion that a killing with a deadly weapon was accidental is in no sense an affirmative defense shifting the burden of proof to him to exculpate himself from a charge of murder. On the contrary, it is merely a denial that the defendant has committed the crime, and the burden remains on the State to prove an intentional killing, an essential element of the crime of murder, before any presumption arises against the defendant. (Of course, accident will be no defense to a homicide committed in the perpetration of or in the attempt to perpetrate a felony. G. S. § 14-17.) To hold otherwise would impose conflicting burdens of proof on the same issue and create two irreconcilable rules pertaining to the same matter. The charge here, in effect, recognizes an intentional accidentan impossibility. In accident "the will observes a total neutrality, and does not co-operate with the deed; which therefore wants one main ingredient of a crime." 4 Blackstone, Commentaries 26 (12th ed., Christian's, London, 1795). Manifestly, if the State has satisfied the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the shooting was intentional, a defendant could *340 not thereafter establish to the satisfaction of the jury that it was accidental. In addition to posing a practical and logical impossibility, the charge robbed defendant of the presumption of innocence and the benefit of the requirement that the State prove each and every element of the offense. State v. Dallas, 253 N.C. 568, 117 S.E.2d 415; State v. Cephus, 239 N.C. 521, 80 S.E.2d 147.
"The plea of accidental homicide, if indeed it can be properly called a plea, is certainly not an affirmative defense, and therefore does not impose the burden of proof upon the defendant, because the state cannot ask for a conviction unless it proves that the killing was done with criminal intent." State v. Ferguson, 91 S.C. 235, 244, 74 S.E. 502, 505. "It is the duty of the state to allege and prove that the killing, though done with a deadly weapon, was intentional or willful. * * * (T)he claim that the killing was accidental goes to the very gist of the charge, and denies all criminal intent, and throws on the prosecution the burden of proving such intent beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Cross, 42 W.Va. 253, 258, 24 S.E. 996, 997. Accord, State v. Matheson, 130 Iowa 440, 103 N.W. 137; State v. Budge, 126 Me. 223, 137 A. 244, 53 A.L.R. 241; State v. Hazlett, 16 N.D. 426, 113 N.W. 374; State v. Lindsey, 68 S.C. 276, 47 S.E. 389; Hardin v. State, 57 Tex.Crim. 401, 123 S.W. 613; 26 Am. Jur., Homicide §§ 106, 290 (1940); 40 C.J. S. Homicide § 196 (1944).
This Court clearly recognized these principles in State v. Williams, 235 N.C. 752, 71 S.E.2d 138, a case in which the defendant, pleading accident, was convicted of second-degree murder. Speaking through Valentine, J., this Court said:
The opinion in State v. Williams, supra, makes no reference to State v. Haywood, *341 61 N.C. 376, or to State v. Keever, 177 N. C. 114, 97 S.E. 727, two cases contra, which hold that the burden is on the defendant to prove accident. In State v. Haywood, supra, the defendant contended that he shot the deceased accidentally because the lock on the gun was out of order. Affirming a death sentence, the Court said, per Pearson, C. J., "(T)he onus of proof (of accident) lay upon the prisoner, the killing by him having been proven." Id. 61 N.C. at 378. In State v. Keever, supra, the defendant was charged with the murder of two persons who died from drinking wood alcohol contained in bottled cream soda the defendant had sold them. Brown, J., speaking for the Court, said, "If the liquid he (defendant) was dispensing contained it (wood alcohol), as the undisputed evidence shows, it was incumbent on defendant to satisfy the jury that he did not put poison in the liquid and did not know it was there when he sold it. This was a fact exclusively within his own knowledge." Id. 177 N.C. at 116, 97 S.E.  at 728. The opinion quotes with approval the following statement from Foster's Crown Law:
Citing State v. Davis, 175 N.C. 723, 95 S.E. 48, Brown, J., reasoned that the principle of law governing a killing by poison was similar to that relating to a killing with a deadly weapon. In Davis, Walker, J., had written:
Similar statements omitting the requirements that the State prove, or that the defendant admit, an intentional killing before any presumptions arise against him are to be found in our earlier reports. E. g., State v. Robinson, 188 N.C. 784, 125 S.E. 617; State v. Benson, 183 N.C. 795, 111 S.E. 869; State v. Rowe, 155 N.C. 436, 71 S.E. 332; State v. Cox, 153 N.C. 638, 69 S.E. 419; State v. Fowler, 151 N.C. 731, 66 S.E. 567; State v. Worley, 141 N.C. 764, 53 S.E. 128; State v. Clark, 134 N.C. 698, 47 S.E. 36; State v. Willis, 63 N.C. 26; State v. Haywood, supra.
Intervening, however, among the above decisions, which omit the requirement that the killing be intentional, are many others which restrict the presumptions of malice and unlawfulness against a defendant to an intentional killing with a deadly weapon. E. g., State v. Pasour, 183 N.C. 793, 111 S.E. 779; State v. Lane, 166 N.C. 333, 81 S.E. 620; State v. Quick, 150 N.C. 820, 64 S.E. 168; State v. Brittain, 89 N.C. 481. "When it is proved that one has killed intentionally, with a deadly weapon, the burden of showing justification, excuse, or mitigation is on him." Pearson, C. J., in State v. Ellick, 60 N.C. 450, 459 (Italics ours.) (Cf. State v. Haywood, supra.)
Since State v. Gregory, 203 N.C. 528, 166 S.E. 387 (a case in which the State's evidence tended to show that deceased's death was caused by the accidental discharge of a shotgun), the rule has been firmly established in our criminal jurisprudence that "the presumptions that a homicide was unlawful and done with malice do not arise against the slayer in a prosecution for homicide unless he admits or the State proves that he intentionally killed the deceased with a deadly weapon." State v. Phillips, 229 N.C. 538, 539, 50 S.E.2d 306, 306; accord, State v. Wagoner, 249 N.C. 637, 107 S.E.2d 83; State v. Crisp, *342 244 N.C. 407, 94 S.E.2d 402, 67 A.L.R.2d 236; State v. Gordon, 241 N.C. 356, 85 S.E.2d 322; State v. Burrage, 223 N.C. 129, 25 S.E.2d 393; State v. Keaton, 206 N.C. 682, 175 S.E. 296.
Since State v. Gordon, supra, it has likewise been clear that:
Even after State v. Gregory, supra, the Court continued to quote the statement of Stacy, J. (later C. J.), in State v. Benson, supra:
E. g., State v. Matthews, 263 N.C. 95, 138 S.E.2d 819; State v. Wagoner, supra; State v. Burrage, supra; State v. Howell, 218 N.C. 280, 10 S.E.2d 815; State v. Keaton, supra. In these cases, however, as in Benson itself, the full implications of the statement with reference to accident or misadventure were not discussed or noticed. The statement was not the point on which the decision turned. The above statement, insofar as it relates to accident or misadventure, is disapproved. It could be correct only if a presumption of guilt arose against a defendant from the mere fact that he had killed deceased with a deadly weapon. It follows that the cases of State v. Keever, supra, and State v. Haywood, supra, are overruled. Of course, the circumstances of a killing alone are frequently sufficient to establish that it was intentionally done. For instance, if A should walk up to B on a public street, pull out a pistol and shoot him dead, the clear inference, nothing else appearing, would be that A intended to kill B.
It results that the following portion of his Honor's charge, assignment of error 82, as well as assignment of error 81, contains a fundamental error:
*343 His Honor erroneously put defendant's assertion of accidental killing in the same class with a plea of self-defense or killing in the heat of passion, both affirmative defenses, which, it is true, a defendant must prove to the satisfaction of the jury. State v. Beachum, 220 N.C. 531, 17 S.E.2d 674. Although assignments of error 81 and 82 relate to the charge on second-degree murder and not voluntary manslaughter, of which defendant was convicted, yet we cannot say that those portions of the charge which imposed on defendant an erroneous burden of proof as to the charge of second-degree murder did not adversely affect her entire defense of accidental shooting. Defendant contends that the killing of her husband was an accident in the strictest meaning of the term and involved no negligence on her part. In this sense accident was relevant to the charge of involuntary manslaughter. It was not relevant as a denial of an intentional killing, since intent is not an element of involuntary manslaughter. Assignments of error 81 and 82 are sustained.
With reference to involuntary manslaughter, the court charged:
In its relation to the rest of the charge, the jury could easily have understood this instruction to require the defendant not only to show accident but also to show it beyond a reasonable doubt, a compound error. Its mischief, as it relates to involuntary manslaughter, is that as to that crime intent was not an issue. The only question was whether defendant had been culpably negligent. "It seems that, with few exceptions, it may be said that every unintentional killing of a human being proximately caused by a wanton or reckless use of firearms, * * * is involuntary manslaughter." State v. Foust, 258 N.C. 453, 459, 128 S.E.2d 889, 893; accord, State v. Brooks, 260 N.C. 186, 132 S.E.2d 354; State v. Honeycutt, 250 N.C. 229, 108 S.E.2d 485; State v. Kluckhohn, 243 N.C. 306, 90 S.E.2d 768; State v. Trollinger, 162 N.C. 618, 77 S.E. 957; State v. Limerick, 146 N.C. 649, 61 S.E. 568.
Since there must be a new trial, we deem any discussion of the other assignments of error unnecessary.
New trial.