Court Opinion

ID: 9808546
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:41:51.796729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:15:18.741164
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
(dissenting). There is no contradiction in the testimony upon which the exceptions made to the charge of his honor are based. Clements, the conductor in charge of the train, found, upon leaving Manson, several negroes in the *1081rear end of the second-class car for whites, singing boisterous songs. There were six or seven of them, including the prisoner. He said to them that they were in the wrong car— “You will have to go to your car.” They paid no attention. He tapped “little Joe” on the shoulder and repeated the language. He said “By G — d! we will when we get ready.” The conductor went out, opening the door ofuthe white car, and opposite the door of the colored car, telling them to come on, and started back, taking up tickets. The car for colored people had three compartments — second-class, first-class, and smoker. The last was next to the second-class for whites. When he reached the first-class compartment he met all the crowd coming back, muttering, “We have first-class tickets and how is it, we are driven around this way ?” All passed through the second-class compartment, except the prisoner, “little Joe Cole,” and one other. As the conductor started to pass through, little Joe and one other, whose name he did not know, caught hold of him and said: “How is this'? We have got first-class tickets, and are driven about in this way ? How is it ?” The conductor explained that it was a state law, and the railroad had nothing to do with it. The prisoner just then entered the first-class compartment from the smoker, and came on, saying something the conductor did not understand —a sort of roaring. The first thing he caught was: “We are all friends. We are all brothers. We will fight for one another. We will die for one another.” While hé was saying that, the porter was standing by, patting him on the-shoulder, saying, “Let captain explain.” The prisoner “lunged” at the conductor, and hit him with his fist. The porter then hit him in the chest with his hand, and prevented him from hitting the conductor. He staggered back against the smoker-car door and drew his pistol. The porter then rushed on the prisoner, and pushed him back into the front left-hand corner of the smoking room. At this time, little *1082Joe and Jones and another shoved the conductor into' the smoking room with them. The conductor straightened up, and saw the prisoner shove the porter off with his left hand and raise his right hand. He did this twice. Pistol in his right hand. Little Joe “tackled” the porter with pistol in his hand. The porter turned and left the prisoner free. The deceased entered the back door of the car, and ran up to the prisoner to grab him, his head to> one side and eyes shut. He touched the prisoner Avith his hands, but did not clinch him. Just as the deceased was about to hit the prisoner, and before he hit him, the prisoner raised his pistol, put it at the deceased’s face, and shot him. Little Joe shot the porter. The conductor thinks he shot first. Erom the time the conductor left the negroes in the white, car until he met them in the colored car Avas not less than two, nor more than four, minutes. It Avas in this State. The deceased was a stout man. He had not talked with either of the negroes. They acted as if drinking. Witness thought they had been. The prisoner Avas, together Avith little Joe and Jones, indicted for murder. He Avas convicted of murder in the first degree, and appealed. The other defendants were convicted of murder in the second degree, and did not appeal. 0
It was. in evidence that the negroes had just come from Virginia, and they were incensed at the legal requirement in this State for the separation of the races in the cars. The prisoner was avowing their determination to “fight for one another; that they would die for one another.” The prisoner “lunged” at the conductor, and hit him with his fists. The porter shoved him back, whereupon he drew his pistol. At this, three of the prisoner’s comrades shoved the conductor into the smoking room, and one of them shot the porter. The conductor saw the prisoner shove the porter off and twice raise his right hand with his pistol in it. The jury had a right to infer from this action, from his comrade shooting the porter, *1083from the prisoner’s declaration that they would fight and die together, and from his shoving back the porter, and twice raising his hand with his pistol in it, that the .prisoner’s intention was to' get room to level his pistol at the conductor. There were premeditation and forethought in this. He shoved the porter back. Then he raised his hand with the pistol in it, lowered it, and raised it again with the pistol in it. What that purpose was, the jury alone could decide, not the court. If it was to shoot the conductor, there was not only the “instant of premeditation,” which is all that is required by our authorities, but there was calculation, method— a determination to get a good aim, and room to level the pistol at his object. Just then the deceased- — roadmaster of the railroad company — entered the car and rushed to grab' the prisoner. His object evidently was to seize the prisoner and prevent his shooting the conductor, and the prisoner, balked of his intention to shoot the conductor, turned and shot the deceased. This would seem the only reasonable motive, and certainly the motive was to be drawn from the conduct of the prisoner and tire surrounding circumstances, and was a matter which the judge properly left to the jury. If the prisoner was, with legal premeditation, however brief, intending to shoot the conductor, and shot the deceased because he was interfering to prevent it, this was murder in the first degree — as much so- afe if he had killed the conductor. It was no sudden gust of passion, but an execution of his already informed intention to kill, by killing the man who attempted to prevent him. It was premeditated killing, though the time was shorter in the selection of his new object. The facts of this case duplicate those in State v. Benton, 19 N. C., at page 223, where Judge Gaston says: “The accused was engaged in a most wicked act, not unlikely to terminate in murder. It was the duty of every by-stander to interpose and stop this career of violence. The deceased at this moment *1084came up toward the parties, when the prisoner instantly turned from the first contemplated victim of bis vengeance, advanced, and, without a word of warning, plunged a knife into him and killed him. We can discover no provocation on the part of the deceased to change the character which the .law impresses on the fatal deed — the character of wilful murder.” The matter was properly submitted to the jury, and, it seems to me, with instructions, too- favorable to the prisoner.
His Honor charged the jury: “If the killing of Stevens was not the result of an effort to kill Clements, but was intentionally done, then the prisoner could not be convicted of murder in the first degree for such killing unless the jury find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the prisoner, before the shooting, coolly determined to kill Stevens, and had deliberated and premeditated on it, and, as a result, had formed a fixed purpose to. kill. In other words, to convict the prisoner of murder in the first degree, you must be satisfied, beyond a reasonable .doubt, either that the prisoner had, with deliberation and ju-emeditation, formed a fixed purpose in his mind, before he shot, to shoot and kill Clements, and, in an effort to do' so, killed Stevens, or he had, with deliberation and premeditation, formed a fixed purpose to kill Stevens, and, in pursuance of such fixed, determined, premeditated, and deliberate purpose, he did kill Stevens. In either of these situations, he would be guilty of murder in the first degree.” The prisoner excepted to so much of the charge as submitted the question of his guilt of murder in the first degree; but, as I understand the law, this charge was not only not unfair to the prisoner, but was more favorable to him than he was entitled to. The evidence was sufficient to go to the jury, to show that the prisoner had, with deliberation and premeditation, formed the purpose in his mind to do murder; and, with this purpose fixed in his heart, it makes no difference upon whom his vengeance was wreaked, and particularly *1085is this so in this case, where the billing is a part of a continuous transaction. State v. Benton, 19 N. C., 223; State v. Shirley, 64 N. C., 610; State v. Smith, 2 Strob., 77; 47 Am. Dec., 589; Holmes v. State, 88 Ala., 26; 16 Am. St. Rep., 17; People v. Miller, 121 Cal., 343; Hopkins v. Com., 50 Pa., 9; 88 Am. Dec., 518. I think tbe judgment should be affirmed. I concur in tbe opinion of tbe court sustaining tbe sufficiency of tbe indictment.
Every dissenting opinion is necessarily a declaration that, in the opinion of the dissenting member of the court, the law has been erroneously declared by the majority. It is not every time, however, that a judge who disagrees with the majority is justified in dissenting. The matter should either be of enough importance to justify putting bis dissent on record, in the prospect that on some future occasion the court may change its views, or the matter should be of such a nature that the dissenting judge deems it to the public interest to point out the injurious consequences which in bis judgment will result from the principles laid down in the opinion of the court. Especially should his be the case when, as here, the dissent is against granting a new trial to one convicted of a capital offense.
There is nothing that is more subversive of good government than lyncbings, yet more men have been executed in this mode in North Carolina in the last fourteen years than by lawful process, and some years twice as many, as appears by the reports of the Attorney-General. The last message of the Governor of the State reports eight executed by lynch law in the last two years, of whom three only were lynched for rape, and in the same period only five were executed by the sheriff for all offenses. The frequency of lyncbings has dulled the popular perception to the dangerous demoralization which will result from such punishments inflicted “outside of the law.” Not long since, a coroner’s jury impaneled to sit *1086upon one executed in this method, in one of the most intelligent counties of the State, passed resolutions eulogizing the lynchers, and the grand jury of an adjoining county officially indorsed their action by a resolution. In the case of this very prisoner (the appellant), and in numerous others known to all men, a military guard had to' be ordered out, at much expense, tO' protect the prisoner till a legal trial could be had, and frequently the accused have had to' be brought to Raleigh for safekeeping. There need not be and should not be such conflicts between the public desire for the repression of crime, and the execution of that will through their properly constituted public officials and servants.
In a free country, law is simply the expression of public opinion, formulated through the servants of the people elected for that purpose. The lynchings in this State, as elsewhere, are a declaration that public opinion is not yet in favor of the abolition of capital punishment, and show that there is in many quarters a lack of confidence in the certainty of the execution by the properly constituted authorities of the law, which requires the infliction of such punishment for murder and rape. When public confidence is restored, in the certainty of the execution of the law in this particular, lynchings will cease. The evil can only be removed by destroying the cause.
It has not been alleged in any quarter that those selected to execute the laws in any of the three departments — executive, legislative or judicial — are lacking in integrity, learning and devotion to their duty, but we know this, that, whereas, by the Attorney-GeneraTs report in 1890 (when criminal statistics were first reported), there were for the two years, 1889-1890, indictments for murder (of whom two only were hung by process of law) 96.
Rape, 25.
Manslaughter, 15.
*1087Total all criminal cases, 10,437.
There were by the Attorney-General’s report in 1902, for tbe two years, 1901-1902, indictments as follows:
Murders, 191.
Rape, 37.
Manslaughter, 60.
Total criminal cases, 17,610.
These are the official reports of the Superior Court clerks, compiled by the Attorney-General, an officer of this department, and being published by authority of law, we take judicial notice thereof.
The great expense of criminal courts is borne by law-abiding citizens, that men and women may be secure in their persons, their lives, and their property, and the great object of punishment is to lessen crime by deterring others from its commission. The above figures show that this object is not being attained, but, on the contrary, the reverse. The figures are official, and have been published by the State under authority of the General Assembly, and for this very purpose of furnishing information whether the method of executing the law is such as to decrease crime, or needs amendment to that end. The number of murders in London last year, with its 6,000,000 of people, drawn together from all parts of the globe and' all classes of men, is shown by the police reports to have been 20. North Carolina has less than one-third of the population, and, with one of the most homogeneous people in the world, makes the above showing in her published official reports. That evil doers should so multiply among us can be due only to some defect in the execution of the laws, which should, but too evidently does not, repress and diminish crime. The existence of lynchings is but one form of nublie protest, and is one from which only evil can come.
What are the defects in our administration of justice which should be remedied, it may not be proper, in a judicial opin*1088ion, to indicate; but, as a justification of my dissent in this case, it is enough to say that, in my judgment, the ruling here made, by increasing the difficulty o'f sustaining convictions for murder upon such a state of facts as is here shown, is, in my judgment detrimental to the public welfare.
Whatever the cause, the number of murders has doubled in twelve years, while manslaughter has increased fourfold, and other crimes 70 per cent. And it must be remembered that there are a large number of homicides, which, because committed in self-defense or for other reasons, have not been indicted, and are not included in the above numbers; and, indeed, the number of homicides in this State last year has been unofficially reported and published as being 285 — how correctly, can not be ascertained. Thinking, as it is my right of dissent to say, that the judgment of the court is erroneous as a matter of law, I should not have put myself on record with a dissenting opinion if I did not think that my highest duty to the public welfare required this dissent to a ruling whose harm will go farther, in my judgment, than the release of this appellant from just punishment for the capital offense of which a jury have found him guilty. The conviction of the prisoner was a matter for the jury. I have viewed with unfeigned alarm the growing disposition h> take cases from the jury, both in civil and criminal matters, upon the ground, unknown to the elders (see opinion of Bynum, J., in Wittkowsky v. Wasson, 71 N. C., 458, and Douglas, J., in Coble v. R. R., Co., 122 N. C., 900, that there is not sufficient evidence, when the twelve men who- are by tire Constitution sole judges of the facts have found the evidence sufficient to compel a unanimous verdict, and the trial judge has refused to set aside their action, as he is vested with the power to do.
In a trial for any capital offense, apart from any other reasons, the mode of trial prescribed by legislation, of itself, *1089renders a conviction for murder in the first degree almost an impossibility in this State, except in cases of sheer poisoning or lying in wait, if the prisoner is able to retain able and skilful counsel. If the abolition of capital punishment was embodied into law, and was a fair expression of public opinion, this would be proper. But because this practical abolition of capital punishment is not according to the law, which still denounces capital punishment in certain cases, and is contrary to public opinion, we have lynchings, to threaten public order, and the great increase in homicides, as shown from our official reports. In a trial for a capital offense, formerly the prisoner was neither allowed counsel to speak for him, nor compulsory process to summon witnesses in his behalf, nor the right to cross-examine the witnesses for the State. To mitigate this barabarism and injustice of the common, law, a great disparity in the number of challenges was given the prisoner. Now, though the above disadvantages to the prisoner have been removed, the prisoner has still 23 peremptory challenges, while the State has only 4, besides his unlimited number of challenges for cause. It is only necessary for the prisoner to “run” -for one man on the panel who is friendly to him, for, if he can secure that man by the rejection of 23 others besides those stood aside for cause, he has defeated the unanimous verdict which is requisite for conviction.
The prisoner has, and should have, the benefit of the presumption of innocence, and that the jury should be convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; and he has also the unavoidable advantage that every judge who sits in the trial court and in this court has, like the writer, more or less often been counsel for those charged with crime, and naturally views every cause, more or less, from that standpoint, and with the natural sympathy any humane man must feel for any one who is on trial for his life. In addition, in our State, the jury must be unanimous, and tire failure to agree of T *1090juror out of 12 defeats conviction. This has been changed in some of the States, it having been found necessary, in order to secure the administration of justice, to require only a two-thirds or a three-fourths vote; but the people of this State will be slow, probably, to abolish the requirement of a unanimous verdict. The State, however, is further handicapped in capital cases, and without any reason, by the prisoner being allowed 23 peremptory challenges to its 4. This has been changed in most of the States, which now allow an equal number of peremptory challenges (usually 6 or 10) to each side. Then the defendant in all criminal cases has the still further advantage that while the defendant can except, and review on appeal any ruling against him, the State can never except to any ruling, however erroneous, made in favor of the prisoner and against the prosecution. Formerly in North Carolina, and until changed by statute, the State could appeal from a verdict of not guilty (State v. Haddock, 3 N. C., 162; State v. McLelland, 1 N. C., 632), and should be allowed to do so again, in the interest of public justice. This is allowed in Connecticut and some other States. State v. Lee, 65 Conn., 265, and cases cited under that case in 27 L. R. A., 498, and 48 Am. St. Rep., 202. The sympathy of the jury and of the judge are naturally with one charged with a capital offense, lest he shall be convicted unjustly; but this natural tendency should not be added to by the matters above mentioned, and others not mentioned, which malm the execution of the law in cases of those charged, however justly, with a capital offense, almost a dead letter, so far as a conviction carrying the death penalty is concerned.
Our statute law says murder shall be punished with death. In practice, in this State, and some others, the punishment is ordinarily a fine paid by the accused to his counsel as a fee, and a far heavier fine paid by the law-abiding people for the costs of the useless trial. The exceptions do not count; *1091being, as our Reports show, one, and never over two, in a Enndred, executed by law, and double that number by lynchings.
It is useless to pass laws against carrying concealed weapons whenever men shall become convinced that slayers of men, however guilty, can only in rare instances be punished by law, and that real protection is really in their own pockets, and “getting the first shot.” It will be equally useless to denounce lynchings, by statute or otherwise, in any locality where men in any considerable number believe that in no other way than by the fear of lynching can grave crimes be prevented, and that the fear of punishment by law is too vague and indefinite to deter men from the commission of capital offenses. The ever-increasing tide of crime should be repressed in an orderly and legal way, by the administration of the law by the courts, and resort to any other mode is evil, and evil only. But to do this, the administration of justice, especially in capital cases, should be more efficient. Any amendment which shall render it possible to convict the guilty will not, if properly framed, destroy any safeguard to those who are innocent. It is possible here, as well as elsewhere, to- make legal proceedings more efficient without making them work injustice. Whatever our laws are, they should be enforced.
The passage of the bill to divide murder into two degrees was secured with the design of making the execution of the law more efficient, since juries might convict of murder in the second degree in cases in which they might acquit rather than convict of an pífense calling for capital punishment. Unfortunately, however, the majority of the court, in State v. Fuller, 114 N. C., 885, ruled further, though there was no provision in the act on the subject, that the immemorial common-law presumption of guilt of the offense charged in the indictment, raised by proof of killing with a deadly weapon, was transferred, to be a presumption only of *1092murder in the second degree. Though there was a dissent in that case, this ruling has been so long acquiesced in that it can probably only be changed now by legislative enactment. The result, however, has been the almost practical abolition of convictions for murder in the first degree, which was not contemplated by the Legislature. In consequence of that ruling, the majority of the court felt unable to approve the verdict of murder in the first degree in State v. Gadberry, 117 N. C., at page 825, in which the prisoner was carrying off a little girl for purposes of lust, and upon her weeping and crying, and calling upon her father and mother and brother to save her, they came without any weapon, whereupon the prisoner pushed the child into the road in front of him, “put the pistol to the child’s back, fired, and ran off into the woods.” The verdict of guilty was set aside by this court. There is not a more horrible case in the books. In State v. Bishop, 131 N. C., 753, in conformity to the same precedent, the majority of the court felt compelled to set aside a verdict of murder in the first degree where four negro men went in a body to a store, grossly insulted a young white clerk, and, when they got him out doors, chased him around, firing fifteen or twenty shots at him, peven of which struck him, all in the back, and after he fell they stood by till one of their number fired two more shots into the dying man, when they all jumped into a wagon and roLe off. In State v. Thomas, 118 N. C., 1113, a man cruelly beat his wife, was heard to' threaten to kill her, then a heavy blow followed, her neck was broken, he threw her body info the water, and denied having touched her. Yet the court held there was no evidence of murder in the first degree and set aside the verdict. In State v. Rhyme, 124 N. C., 847, a negro being engaged in a row with another employee, the employer asked him in a gentle way as to the trouble, whereupon without provocation *1093he slew the employer and rushed off, boasting of the deed. The majority of this court set aside the verdict. At the following term of the court below, when the prisoner submitted to guilty of murder in the'second degree, the presence of a company of soldiers was necessary to secure bis safe conveyance to the penitentiary. This should not be the case in any country where the people make and execute the laws. There are several other cases in our books almost as bad. Enough has been done for those who' murder. It is time the courts were doing something for those who do not wish to be murdered.

“Mercy but murders, pardoning those who kill.”

—Shak.
The eminent judges who made the precedent in State v. Fuller could not and did not see bow far it would be carried. In the present case, the deceased, unarmed, was simply trying to prevent the murder of the conductor. The prisoner killed him for trying to prevent it. There was no provocation. It seems to me that this is clearly murder in the first degree, and that I should say so.
Regretting to differ from my brethren in any case, and especially in a case of this nature, a high sense of public duty compels me to enter my dissent to a ruling which is according to precedent as they see it, but which to my view, is not only clearly erroneous in law, but must have a detrimental effect upon the due administration of justice. If what is here said shall in any way bring about increased efficiency in the administration of justice, and moderate or reduce the growing volume of crime, which has increased 10 per cent in twelve years, and doubled the number of true bills for murder and quadrupled the number of indictments for manslaughter in that short space of time, this dissent will not have been written in vain. The fear of prompt and certain punishment can deter from crime, and reduce the frightful and. growing number of *1094bnmicid.es; else why have a costly administration of justice at all ? It is certain that under our present procedure in capital cases, and the construction placed by the court on the act dividing murder into two degrees, that punishment in such cases is very far from certain. Men do not fear the law enough to refrain from gratifying their evil passions. These things should be plainly said, and, if the only relief is in legislation, law-abiding citizens should know it, that a sound public opinion may apply the remedy.