Court Opinion

ID: 9620527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:43:32.297179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:51.354917
License: Public Domain

Judge Britt
dissenting.
While I commend the efforts of our division of Archives and History to diligently preserve documents and artifacts relating to the history of our great State, I do not feel that plaintiff has established title to the documents in question, namely, two bills of indictment signed by William Hooper, one of the persons who, in 1776, signed the Declaration of Independence on behalf of North Carolina.
The two indictments purportedly were signed by Hooper in 1767 and 1768 when he was serving the Salisbury District Superior Court as attorney for King George the Third. The most that plaintiff showed in attempting to establish title to the documents was (1) that they were signed by an official of the Crown in 1767 and 1768, and (2) that they were found in the possession of private citizens more than 200 years later. There was no showing that either document has been in the possession of any government official since 1768.
I suggest only a few questions that p’aintiff failed to answer. Were court official in colonial North Carolina required to preserve bills of indictment after they had served their purpose? During the turbulent 1770’s were court papers deliberately discarded? Were colonial court papers included in the “property” that the new State wrested from Great Britain? If so, *450have the laws of our State since 1776 continuously forbidden the discarding of all court papers ?
The burden was on plaintiff to establish title to the documents. Since the foregoing and other questions have not been answered to my satisfaction, I respectfully dissent to the majority opinion.