Court Opinion

ID: 9848764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:26:49.615024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:44.148948
License: Public Domain

BaRNhill, C. J.,
dissenting: When the evidence in this case is boiled down to its essentials, the facts are few, and all point in one direction. Viewing the evidence offered by the defendant himself, the facts are simple and the inferences to be drawn therefrom are impelling and, in my opinion, lead to only one reasonable conclusion.
A pistol is a deadly weapon. It is so dangerous that the General Assembly has made it a crime for a person to point one at another, even “in fun or otherwise.” G.S. 14-34. The defendant was carrying one with him on his travels, prompted no doubt by an ill-conceived idea he needed it for protection. He took it out of his baggage, and it was seen once on the bureau in his room and again on his bed. So it is quite apparent he had been handling it.
On the occasion of the homicide he took it in his hand and pulled the trigger without taking care to ascertain whether it was loaded — though *315this is a fact he must have known — or giving thought to the direction in which it was pointed. After it was fired, he callously failed to make any effort to determine in what direction the bullet had gone or where it had landed. It might have passed through the door into the hall where some person was passing, or it might have gone through a wall into another room occupied by other guests of the hotel, or it might have — as it did — passed through the window and mortally wounded one of those who were passing along the west sidewalk of Salisbury Street, or landed in the adjoining parking lot where people were passing to and fro. But what did he care! He calmly finished packing, went to the lobby, paid his bill, chatted for a while with one of the officers of the hotel, and departed, concerned only as to whether anyone had heard the pistol fire in his room.
This is the case made out by defendant’s own testimony. The State made out, at least prima facie, a much stronger case against him. Under the evidence for the State he stood at the window and watched the people gather around the woman he had mortally wounded.
It makes no difference exactly where defendant was standing when he fired the shot. The irrefutable physical evidence discloses that he was so situated that if he pointed the pistol downward at a somewhat acute angle and fired it, the bullet would strike on or near the sidewalk of Salisbury Street or in the automobile parking lot. It was so pointed, and the bullet did strike the deceased who was on the sidewalk, preparing to get into an automobile.
To my mind this testimony, for which defendant vouches, evidences a culpably heedless use of a deadly weapon resulting in the death of deceased which entitled the State to a peremptory instruction, so that any error in the charge was harmless.
“Where one engaged in an unlawful and dangerous act, such as 'fooling with an old gun,’ i.e., using a loaded pistol in a careless and reckless manner, or pointing it at another, and kills the other by accident, he would be guilty of an unlawful homicide or manslaughter. G.S. 14-34; S. v. Vines, 93 N.C. 493; S. v. Trollinger, 162 N.C. 618, 77 S.E. 957; S. v. Limerick, 146 N.C. 649, 61 S.E. 568.” S. v. Hovis, 233 N.C. 359, 64 S.E. 2d 564.
I might add that the cause was tried on the theory the State was required to prove that the defendant intentionally pointed the pistol toward the street where people were passing back and forth. Such is not the case. If defendant intentionally pointed the pistol toward the street and then fired it, inflicting a fatal wound on one of the pedestrians, he would be guilty of murder in the second degree. Thus, in some respects, the charge was more favorable to defendant than he had any right to expect. In any event, a person is presumed to intend the *316natural consequences of his act. S. v. Matthews, 231 N.C. 617, 58 S.E. 2d 625.
Let me add that if the homicide had been accomplished with any instrumentality other than a deadly weapon I would concur in the majority opinion. The facts being what they are, I must vote to affirm.
PARKER, J., concurs in dissent.