Court Opinion

ID: 9560550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:50:59.116604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:12.857876
License: Public Domain

*422Judge Brock
concurring in the result.
I concur in the result reached that the trial of defendant was free from prejudicial error. However, I do not agree with the rule pronounced by the majority concerning fingerprint evidence.
The rule stated by the majority places on the State a heavier burden of proof in the use of fingerprint evidence than is justified. As I read the rule stated by the majority, in order to withstand a motion for nonsuit it is incumbent on the State to conclusively establish that the fingerprints could have been impressed only at the time the offense was committed.
In my opinion, the State need only offer evidence from which the jury could find, after consideration of all the circumstances of the case, that the fingerprints could have been impressed only at the time the offense was committed. The question of whether, under the circumstances of the case as the jury found them to be, fingerprints found at the scene of the crime could have been impressed only at the time when the crime was committed, is a question for determination by the jury, not the court. This, I think, is the intent of State v. Tew, State v. Rogers, State v. Blackmon, and the secondary source material cited by the majority. Also, I think it is the intent of State v. Minton, 228 N.C. 518, 46 S.E. 2d 296; State v. Smith, 274 N.C. 159, 161 S.E. 2d 449; State v. Pittman, 10 N.C. App. 508, 179 S.E. 2d 198; and Annot., 28 A.L.R. 2d 1115, at 1150.