Court Opinion

ID: 9807619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:11:23.34872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:49:12.951417
License: Public Domain

ClabK, C. J.,
dissenting. The Court gave the following prayers at the request of the State: “2. If the jury are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the prisoner slew the deceased with a deadly weapon, to-wit, a pistol, and are left in doubt as to the circumstances of mitigation or excuse offered by the prisoner or derived from the State’s evidence, they should convict of murder in the second degree.”
*714“3. If the jury are satisfied beyond a reasonable donbt that the prisoner slew the deceased with a deadly weapon, to-wit, a pistol, and are left in donbt from the whole evidence as to whether the deceased at the time he was slain was making a felonious assault upon the prisoner with a knife, either because he did not then have the knife or because he was too drunk to be capable of making such assault, and are left in doubt as to whether the prisoner at the time he slew the deceased believed, and had reasonable ground for believing, that the deceased was making such felonious assault upon him with a knife, then they should convict of murder in the second degree.”
It is a complete answer to these exceptions that the prisoner was acquitted of murder in the second degree and could not have been prejudiced thereby. Besides, the charge was warranted upon all our authorities. When the killing with a deadly weapon is admitted or proved, the presumption is that the prisoner is guilty of murder in the second degree (State v. Hicks, 125 N. C., 636; State v. Booker, 123 N. C., 713; State v. Dowden, 118 N. C., 1145), and every matter of excuse or justification must be shown by the prisoner. State v. Johnson, 48 N. C., 266; State v. Ellick, 60 N. C., 451; State v. Brittain, 89 N. C., 481; State v. Rollins, 113 N. C., 722, p. 734, where several cases are cited; State v. Barrett, 132 N. C., 1005. From the foregoing cases it will appear that the doctrine is well established that the burden devolved upon the prisoner to prove all matters of excuse or mitigation, and this he must do to the satisfaction of the jury. State v. Whitson, 111 N. C., 695, syllabus 9, p. 696; State v. Willis, 63 N. C., 26; State v. Locklear, 118 N. C., 1154; State v. Barrett, supra. It was incumbent on the prisoner to satisfy the jury as to the circumstances offered by him in evidence to rebut the presumption of malice and to reduce the crime to manslaughter *715or self-defense. If tbe evidence left the jury in donbt, it fell below the required standard, and therefore the charge was not erroneous.
In State v. Potts, 100 N. C., at p. 463, the Court below refused instructions “to the effect that if, upon the evidence, the minds of the jury are left in doubt as to the sanity of the prisoner or of his malicious intent in taking the life of the deceased, it should be resolved in his favor, leading in one instance to acquittal, and in the other to the reduction of the grade of the offense to manslaughter.” The ruling of the Court below was affirmed by this Court.
In State v. Byers, 100 N. C., 512, the following charge, at p. 511, by the Judge below was affirmed by this Court, Chief Justice Smith delivering the opinion: “That when the killing was proved to have been done with a deadly weapon or admitted by the prisoner, the burden of showing the mitigating circumstances shifted to the prisoner, and this he must show, not by a preponderance of testimony or beyond a reasonable doubt, but to their satisfaction, and if the jury were left in doubt as to the mitigating circumstances, it would be a case of murder.”
In State v. Smith, 77 N. C., at p. 488, Faircloth, J., also says: “Homicide is murder unless it be attended with mitigating circumstances, which must appear to the satisfaction of the jury, and if the jury are left in doubt on this point it is still murder.” This is quoted verbatim and approved by Davis, J., in State v. Jones, 98 N. C., at p. 651, as well as by Smith, C. J., in State v. Byers, 100 N. C., 518, and it is again held in State v. Rollins, 113 N. C., p. 133. State v. Smith on this point is also cited as authority but without verbatim quotation, in State v. Brittain, 89 N. C., 502; State v. Mazon, 90 N. C., 683; State v. Whitson, 101 N. C., 100, and by Douglas, J., in State v. Byrd, 121 N. C., 686. In State v. Garland, 90 N. C., at p. 614, Ashe, J., *716says: “a bare preponderance of proof will not do to show matters of mitigation or excuse unless it produces satisfaction of their worth in the minds of the jury.” Certainly the jury cannot be satisfied of the truth of such defense when “they are left in doubt about it.”
When counsel in zeal for their clients have sought to change this rule, whose maintenance the Court has heretofore deemed necessary for the prevention of murders, the Court has always refused, and Smith, G. J., citing and approving State v. Smith, 77 N. C., 488, and other cases, says, in State v. Mazon, 90 N. C., 683: “If anything can be settled and put at rest by judicial decisions this principle has been, and we cannot now permit it to be drawn in question without impairing the confidence which ought to be reposed in the integrity and stability of the judicial administration of the law.” These are wise words of one of the ablest and most distinguished of our predecessors, and the principle there followed has not till now been shaken in any subsequent case. The State, always at a gross and unfair disadvantage, by reason of the disparity in the number of challenges and other causes, in any effort to enforce the law 'in this State against homicides, has been reduced almost to a state of impotence, except when the killing has been by lying in wait, by the late statute and the construction placed upon it in State v. Gadberry, 117 N. C., 811, and similar cases. In view of the vast increase, in the number of murders in this State which has followed, and which now amount almost to an epidemic, and the consequent increase in the number of attempts by the people themselves outside of the law to repress’crime by lynchings, I view with regret the overruling of another long and unbroken line of precedents which our learned and able predecessors thought just and necessary that murders might less abound.
There has been no statute and no decision impeaching *717tbe uniform and bitlierto unanimous decisions of tbis Court to tbe above effect. As tbe burden was upon tbe prisoner to prove tbe matter in mitigation to tbe satisfaction of tbe jury, it inevitably follows that if tbe jury bad been left in doubt tbe matter in mitigation was not proved to tbeir satisfaction, and tbeir verdict should have been rendered guilty of murder in tbe second degree. But tbeir verdict establishes that they were so satisfied.
Tbe prisoner requested the Oourt to charge tbe jury that “If they believed from tbe evidence that tbe deceased was engaged in a difficulty with Asa Miller and was attempting to cut said Miller with his knife in tbe presence of tbe prisoner, it was bis duty to endeavor to suppress and prevent tbe same, and if in attempting to do so tbe deceased left off bis difficulty with Miller and made upon tbe prisoner with a drawn knife in such a manner as to cause tbe prisoner to apprehend, and be did apprehend, that be was about to be slain or to receive enormous bodily barm, then tbe prisoner bad a right to stand bis ground and, if necessary, to take tbe life of tbe deceased without retreating.”
Tbis prayer was certainly defective in leaving out the word “reasonably,” which tbe Judge supplied in tbe following instruction 'which be gave in lieu of that asked: “If tbe jury believe from tbe evidence that tbe deceased was engaged in a difficulty with Asa Miller and was attempting to cut said Miller with bis knife in tbe presence of tbe prisoner, and tbe deceased was then capable of executing such a purpose, it was bis duty to endeavor to suppress and prevent tbe same, and if in attempting to do so tbe deceased left off bis difficulty with Miller and made upon the prisoner with a drawn knife in such a manner as to cause tbe prisoner to reasonably apprehend, and be did actually apprehend, that be was about to be slain or receive enormous bodily barm, then tbe prisoner bad a right to stand bis ground and *718if necessary to take the life of the deceased without retreating, provided the assault made upon the prisoner was felonious or with felonious intent.” This was asked by the prisoner (except the additions), and was fully as favorable to the prisoner as he was entitled to under State v. Gentry, 125 N. C., 733, and the addition “provided the assault made upon the prisoner was felonious or with a felonious intent,” was too plain and intelligible to require a translation of the word “felonious” to the jury. Twelve men of ordinary intelligence could not be empaneled who would not have at least some man upon it who could instruct those upon the jury who were so illiterate (if any) as not to understand the meaning of the Judge in that context. If, however, they could have understood the Judge to mean an assault with a lesser intent than homicide, then the error was in favor of the prisoner and he cannot complain. If the failure to explain the word “felonious” was error, it being prejudicial to the State only, it could not possibly be error against the prisoner.
The evidence was that the deceased, who was a lame man, was “perfectly drunk” and “wild drunk,” and there was direct evidence that he was not trying to hurt Miller and that they were in a drunken squabble, and there were other circumstances which would have justified the jury in drawing the inference that the deceased was not capable of harming Miller or of executing any purpose to harm the prisoner if the latter had retreated, as he should have done, after the deceased left Miller, if he (the prisoner) could do so with safety, and thereby have avoided taking the life of a human being. “The dead are always wrong” says the proverb truly, and the deceased is not here to give his version of the slaying, but if upon this evidence the condition of the deceased was such that the prisoner could have retreated with safety, but he preferred rather to stand his ground and kill *719the deceased, without overpowering necessity to prevent injury to himself, then the verdict of manslaughter and the short term in the Penitentiary imposed should not be complained of by him. Human life ought to retain something of its former sacredness in the eye of the law.