Court Opinion

ID: 9617635
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:59:03.197991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:14.007512
License: Public Domain

LAKE, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the decisions reached in the majority opinion with reference to Bill No. 48 and with reference to Bill No. 49, and with the views expressed therein concerning those two cases.
I dissent from the decision with reference to Bill No. 50. It is my view that the motion to quash that indictment should have been granted for the reason that the indictment does not state a criminal offense under the present law of this State.
The sufficiency of an indictment to withstand a motion to quash turns upon the facts alleged therein and not upon what the evidence shows. The indictment in Case No. 50 is not strengthened by what is alleged and proved in Cases No. 48 and 49. Upon the motion to quash, it must be considered as if there were no Case No. 48 and no Case No. 49. Upon that motion we look solely to the indictment in Case No. 50 and we assume that every fact alleged therein is true and that no other fact whatever is known about this defendant. State v. Cole, 202 N.C. 592, 163 S.E. 594; State v. Whedbee, 152 N.C. 770, 67 S.E. 60; State v. Eason, 70 N.C. 88; 27 Am. Jur., Indictments and Informations, § 54.
The facts alleged in the indictment in Case No. 50 are these:
The defendant and three others “did unlawfully, & wilfully arm themselves with unusual and dangerous weapons, to wit: Pistols and Rifles and, for the wicked and mischievous purpose of terrifying and alarming the citizens of Alamance County, did ride or go about the public highways of Alamance County without lawful excuse armed with said weapons in a manner as would cause terror and annoyance and danger to the citizens of said county.”
The majority construes this to allege that the defendant, armed as described, went upon the public highways in a manner to cause terror to the people. I construe the allegation to mean that he went upon the public highways armed in a manner to cause terror to the people. The difference is not a play upon words. The indictment must charge the elements of the offense “lucidly.” State v. Banks, 263 N.C. 784, 140 S.E. 2d 318. Where it leaves doubt as to what acts are charged, the accusation should be strictly construed. 27 Am. Jur., Indictments and Informations, §§ 54, 57. In my view of the law of this *551State, it is quite material whether the defendant is charged with some act while bearing arms upon the highway or with the mere bearing of arms upon the highway. A substantial basis for doubt as to whether the indictment charges an element of a criminal offense should be resolved in favor of the defendant. As the majority opinion notes, this indictment does not allege any act or threat of violence committed by the defendant while going armed upon the highway. Neither does it allege that any person was terrified.
In State v. Huntley, 25 N.C. 418, which is cited by the majority and which is the foundation upon which the conclusion of the majority opinion rests, the indictment charged that the armed defendant went upon the highway and, exhibiting himself thereon to the citizens of the county, “did openly and publicly declare a purpose and intent” to murder a named individual and others “by which said arming, exposure, exhibition, and declarations,” citizens of the State were terrified and the peace of the State endangered. That is a substantial distinction between the present case and State v. Huntley. If these acts of the defendant there were not the basis upon which that case was decided, it is my view that State v. Huntley does not correctly represent the present law of this State, even if it did so represent the law of this State in 1843.
The majority opinion correctly states that the opinion in State v. Huntley has never been criticised during the 124 years since it was rendered by the great Court composed of Ruffin, C.J., and Gas-ton and Daniel, JJ. It is possible that this is true because of the fact that, so far as the reports of this Court’s decisions show, it has never been applied from that day to this. It is true that there are a few scattered instances in which this Court has cited that case as a correct statement of the common law. I have been able to find only these: State v. Cole, 249 N.C. 733, 107 S.E. 2d 732; State v. Griffin, 125 N.C. 692, 34 S.E. 513; State v. Roten, 86 N.C. 701; State v. Lanier, 71 N.C. 288. In none of these was the offense charged that dealt with in State v. Huntley. To these might be added State v. Kerner, 181 N.C. 574, 107 S.E. 222, in which Clark, C.J., in an opinion concurred in only by one other member of the Court, though the entire Court joined in the result, refers to the common law crime of carrying deadly weapons in a manner calculated to inspire terror. There, too, another offense was charged. State v. Huntley cites no instance in which anyone was ever, prior to that date, charged with this offense in North Carolina. No American decision is cited as recognizing the existence of such an offense in this country.
That case, decided by this Court when composed of judges equalled by few and surpassed by none in wisdom or in knowledge of the *552common law, establishes that in 1843 the common law of North Carolina made it a criminal offense for one armed with “unusual and dangerous weapons” to go upon the public highway and there, by threats of murder, cause terror to the people. Notwithstanding the eminent authority of the Court which so declared the common law of this State in 1843, I question the correctness of a decision which now sends a man to prison on no basis save that it was so declared in the time of Plantagenet absolutism, the dust gathered upon that declaration having been disturbed but once in all the history of this State.
There is, however, a much better reason for refusing to affirm this defendant’s conviction on the ground of State v. Huntley, supra. That is, the fact that the present Constitution of this State contains a different provision as to the right of the people of North Carolina to bear arms from that which the Constitution contained in 1843 At that time the Constitution in effect was the one adopted 18 December 1776. In section 44, that original Constitution of North Carolina incorporated into itself the Declaration of Rights adopted the previous day. Section 17 of the Declaration of Rights of 1776 declared “that the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of the State * * *.” (Emphasis added.) That provision was quoted by Gaston, J., in State v. Huntley and he emphasized in his opinion the fact that the Constitution then so limited this right.
In 1868, our Constitution was rewritten and the language of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was substituted for that of the original Constitution relied upon in State v. Huntley. That language is, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed * * (Emphasis added.) Seven years later, in the Convention of 1875, this sentence was added: “Nothing herein contained shall justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons, or prevent the Legislature from enacting penal statutes against said practice.” It appears indisputable that the Convention of 1875 regarded the then established right of the people to keep and bear arms as absolute, so much so that the Legislature could not even forbid the carrying of a concealed weapon without the express authority being granted to it in the Constitution by amendment.
It is true that in State v. Speller, 86 N.C. 697, Ruffin, J., not the Chief Justice of 1843, said in a dictum that the Legislature might by law “regulate this right to bear arms,” and the same view is expressed by Allen and Stacy, JJ., in State v. Kerner, supra, in which case, as above noted, there was no opinion receiving the approval of the majority of the Court. I am unable to understand how a right can be regulated without being infringed. The language of the present *553Constitution appears to be plain and unequivocal. It does not say that the right to bear arms cannot be infringed except for the promotion of peace and good order in the community. It says the right shall not be infringed. It is immaterial whether that is wise or unwise. That is what the Constitution says. The better view on this point seems to be that stated by Clark, C.J., in State v. Kerner, supra, as follows:
“The Constitution of this State, sec. 24, Art. I, which is entitled, ‘Declaration of Rights,’ provides: ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,’ adding, ‘Nothing herein contained shall justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons, or prevent the Legislature from enacting penal statutes against said practice.’ This exception indicates the extent to which the right of the people to bear arms can be restricted; that is, the Legislature can prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons, but no further.”
If the Legislature of North Carolina today cannot make conduct a criminal offense, it cannot be punished in this State by reason of the fact that Edward II declared it to be so. It was the very fact that the right to bear arms had been infringed in England, and that this is a step frequently taken by a despotic government, which caused the adoption of the provision in the North Carolina Declaration of Rights of 1776 and the insertion in the Federal Bill of Rights of the Second Amendment. When our distinguished predecessors of 1843 determined that the language used in our State Constitution did not forbid the imprisonment of a man for conduct which Edward III had declared a criminal offense, the people of this State wrote into our Constitution the more inclusive language of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Thus, State v. Huntley, supra, unless distinguishable from the present case as above suggested, has not been overruled by this Court. It has been overruled by the only authority which is higher than this Court in matters of North Carolina law — the people of North Carolina.
A further quotation from the opinion of Clark, C.J., in State v. Kerner, in which opinion Hoke, J., later C.J., concurred, is not inappropriate to the present times:
“The former [the right to keep and bear arms] is a sacred right, based upon the experience of the ages in order that the people may be accustomed to bear arms and ready to use them for the protection of their liberties or their country when occasion serves. The provision against carrying them concealed was to prevent assassinations or advantages taken by the law*554less, i.e., against the abuse of the privilege. * * *
“In our own State, in 1870, when Kirk’s militia was turned loose and the writ of habeas corpus was suspended, it would have been fatal if our people had been deprived of the right to bear arms, and had been unable to oppose an effective front to the usurpation.
“The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to every free people, and should not be whittled down by technical constructions. It should be construed to include all such ‘arms’ as were in common use, and borne by the people when this provision was adopted. * * * The intention was to embrace ‘the arms,’ an acquaintance with whose use was necessary for their protection against the usurpation of illegal power — such as riñes, muskets, shotguns, swords, and pistols. * *- *
“The usual method when a country is overborne by force is to ‘disarm’ the people. It is to prevent the above and similar exercises of arbitrary power that the people in creating this Government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people,’ reserved to themselves the right to ‘bear arms’ that accustomed to their use they might be ready to meet illegal force with legal force by adequate and just defense of their persons, their property, and their liberties, whenever necessary. We should be slow, indeed, to construe such guarantee into a mere academic expression which has become obsolete.”
When State v. Huntley was decided in 1843, it had never been supposed that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution placed any limit upon the power of the State Government to declare conduct criminal. See Clark, C.J., in State v. Kerner, supra. There was then no Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court of the United States has now held that the Fourteenth Amendment makes applicable to state governments all of those provisions of the first ten amendments which are essential to the preservation of liberty. See, Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 326, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L. Ed. 288. Whether that Court will so regard the Second Amendment, I am unable to predict. In any event, the same language now in our own State Constitution does forbid the imposition of criminal penalties upon the bearing of arms which are not concealed.
By no means does it follow that one, while bearing arms, may use them as he sees fit. The right to bear arms obviously confers no right to shoot into the dwelling of another. Thus, the conviction of the defendant in Case No. 49 should be affirmed and I concur in the *555majority’s decision so to do. Likewise, the State has unquestioned power to punish for an assault with a deadly weapon more severely than for a simple assault, G.S. 14-33, and to impose for armed robbery a sentence more severe than that imposed for common law robbery. G.S. 14-87. To stand in a public highway brandishing a pistol while threatening to murder, as was done in State v. Huntley, may be punished by the State. To incite to riot is punishable. State v. Cole, 249 N.C. 733, 107 S.E. 2d 732. To refer to the case of Sir John Knight, cited in the majority opinion, if some modern counterpart of Sir John invades a church in this State while Divine services are in progress, waving a gun and terrifying the congregation, as Sir John is said to have done in England, he may be punished for disturbing public worship if not for an assault with a deadly weapon. It is not necessary to dust off Edward Ill’s statute of Northampton, 2 Edward III, ch. 3, in order to protect the people of this State from the misuse of firearms or other weapons. However, the mere carrying of weapons upon the public highway, without some act other than the carrying of them, cannot be made a crime under the Constitution of this State, even though the sight of the weapons frightens some person or persons; nor is it sufficient to make the bearing of weapons a criminal offense that the bearer intended to frighten someone thereby. So long as a man does only that which the Constitution declares he has an uninfringeable right to do, he cannot be convicted and punished whatever his motive or purpose for doing it may be and whatever the effect of it may be upon other people. Until some act, other than the mere carrying of the weapon is done, the Constitution of the State protects the bearer of the weapon from punishment by the State.
In the present indictment in Case No. 50, as I interpret it, the defendant is charged only with carrying weapons on the highway, not with any other act. For this reason the indictment does not state a criminal offense and the motion to quash should have been allowed.
Higgins, J., authorizes me to say he concurs in the views here expressed and joins in this opinion.