Court Opinion

ID: 9809285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:07:05.124724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:25:48.482758
License: Public Domain

Montgomery, J.,
dissenting. The term “appeal” as it is understood to mean the removal of a cause for final judgment from an inferior to a superior court to be tried de novo- upon its merits, is of civil law origin, and was unknown to the common law. A writ of error upon matter of law was the remedy in criminal as well as in civil at the common law, but the writ was not allowable to the prosecution in, criminal case's. In modern practice appeals can not be- had by the State in criminal cases except as provided by statute. The decisions in our Court upon, this subject are interesting. In State v. Jones, 5 N. C., 257, it was held that in a criminal prosecution the State was not entitled to an appeal under any of the provisions of the Act of Assembly regulating appeals. In State v. Caudle, 63 N. C., 506, it is said “thei class of cases in which the State has that right (appeal) is very small.” In State v. Lane, 78 N. C., 547, it was held that the State could appeal upon a special verdict, upon a demurrer, and upon a motion to quash.. In State v. Moore, 84 N. C., 724, it was said: “Its (the State) right of appeal in a criminal action is not derived from the common law or any statute of this State, but has obtained under the sanction of tire courts by a long practice, and has been recognized in but four *1092cases, to-wit: Where judgment has been given for defendant upon a special verdict; upon a demurrer; a motion to quash, and arrest of judgment.” After the decision in the last-mentioned case¡, sec. 1237, of The Code, was enacted, and embraces tire four cases mentioned in that decision in which the State can appeal.
In the case before us the defendant was tried in the court of the Mayor of Winston, was convicted and fined, and appealed to the Superior Court. In that court the defendant was tried on tire warrant which was issued by the Mayor, and upon which there was no apparent defect, though, in fact, no affidavit of a complainant was attached. A witness, the person. upon whose alleged affidavit the warrant was issued, testified that it. was issued without affidavit. The subsequent proceedings, material for the purposes of this appeal, were:, in the language of the case on appeal, as follows:
It appearing that no affidavit was made, tire; defendant contended he was entitled to a verdict of not guilty.
The State contended that the warrant being- regular on its face, the absence of an affidavit made no difference, and that the case should be heard on its merits, and that the most that the Court could do-, in case it refused to hear the case, was to withdraw a juror and dismiss the warrant.
The Court announced that, in tire exercise of its discretion, it refused to withdraw a juror or dismiss the action, hut directed the Clerk to enter a verdict of not guilty, which was done, and the defendant discharged.
The case before us is here on the appeal of the State, and if the appeal can be sustained it must be on the ground that the course of his Honor in instructing the jury to return a verdict of not guilty was in legal effect .the quashing of the bill of indictment (the Justice’s warrant). I am of the opinion that the action of his Honor was equivalent to. a quashing of the *1093indictment- from which the State had the right to- appeal. I know it is said in State v. Powell, 86 N. C., 640, that: “When a party charged with an odíense before a' tribunal of competent jurisdiction has been- tried and acquitted the result is final and conclusive, and no appeal is allowed the State to correct any error committed by the Court.” But I feel satisfied that in this case the verdict of the jury returned by direction of his Honor was not such am acquittal as is contemplated in State v. Powell, supra. An acquittal, to be final and conclusive, as is contemplated in the last-mentioned case, must be had upon a trial upon tire merits of the case. The ruling of his Honor in this case was in legal effect exactly as if he had quashed the bill of indictment for defect ini substance. The State was anxious to' have the case proceeded with on its merits, and insisted on such a trial, but his Honor upon discovering that the warrant was issued without an affidavit stopped the trial, and because of that defect, the issuing of the warrant without affidavit, directed the jury to return a verdict of acquittal. It is true that the third sub-division of sec. 1231, of The Code, is in. the words “upon a motion to quash,” and it is also true that in the regular course of procedure the motion to quash should be made before the defendant pleads to the indictment,; but in point of legal effect his Honor, without a motion on the part of the defendant made before or after pleading, after the defendant had pleaded and the jury had been- empanelled, quashed the indictment because the warrant was not issued on affidavit. He did not enter a formal judgment that the indictment (warrant) be quashed, but what he did was in legal effect just as if he had done so. The defendant was not tried for the offensei with which he was charged, the warrant itself being sufficient in substance and regular in form, but he was discharged by an order to the jury to acquit him of the charge because the warrant *1094was not issued on affidavit. The doctrine of “once in jeopardy” applied only to trials where the indictment is for a capital felony. Wharton’s Crim. Law, p. 517; State v. Spier, 12 N. C., 491.
Clark, J. I concur in the dissenting opinion.