Court Opinion

ID: 9811128
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:10:25.384869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:56.482423
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.,
dissenting. The defendant was indicted and tried under sub-see. 6, sec. 985, of The Code. T'he Judge refused to hold that the trial was under sub-sec. 2, of that section, and passed a sentence which was authorized by sub-sec. 6, but which would not have been legal under sub-sec. 2. The said sub-sec. 6, has been amended, Laws 1885, chap'. 66, by striking out in line one the words “unlawfully and maliciously” and inserting “wantonly and wilfully,” and striking' out in lines ten and eleven the words “with intent to injure or defraud any person, or persons, body politic or corporation.” So no proof of malice towards the owner of the property is necessary to constitute the offense. The evidence of ill-will expressed by the defendant towards the manager or overseer shortly before the fire, was admitted without exception, and is not before us. The corroboratory evidence that the defendant also expressed ill-will towards the overseer last year, which might well have been only four months earlier, in December of the previous year, was admitted over *1045defendant’s exception, and is the sole ground relied upon for a new trial. That could not be prejudicial after the admission without objection of the evidence as to the several more recent expressions of malice towards the overseer. But if the latter evidence had been excepted to, and had been brought before us, no precedent is cited which holds that malice towards the person in charge of the property would not be admissible upon the question of motive, and there are sound reasons why, in many cases, it would throw material light upon the transaction. Suppose the owner was that intangible tiling, a corporation; if malice as a motive is competent, as it always is, it could be: shown that the accused was angry with the person managing the property, or such cases would be an exception to the universal rule that motive can be shown,. And that case differs in no material aspect from this, in which the overseer represents a non-resident owner. But if the owner were resident and present every day, can it be held as a proposition of law that evidence that an employee entertained ill-will towards an overseer, and wished to discredit him and cause his removal,is not evidence of motive ? It is not an adequate motive, but is the motive for any crime ever adequate for its perpetration ? If it is, it is not motive but justification. It can not be said either as a proposition of law or as a matter of human experience that a desire to injure one person becomes irrelevant when the act will in fact injure another person still more. The desire to discredit the overseer and cause his removal is none 'the less a motive because the burning will injure the owner. Motive was not offered as an ingredient of the crime, but as circumstantial evidence, tending with other proof to show commission of the crime by the defendant. The abduction of a child may be from ill-will to the parent or guardian, though the greater injury is to the child itself against whom there is no- motive shown.
*1046On this question of motive the long-established and well-observed rule is laid down by Roscoe’s Criminal Evidence, and cited by Ashe, J., in State v. Green, 92 N. C., 179, on an indictment for burning a gin bouse. “Where it has been shown that a crime has been committed, and the circumstances point to the accused as the perpetrator, facts tending to show a motive, although remote, are admissible in evidence.” The jury should be cautious with respect to the importance they attach to this species of evidence, still it is to be weighed by them, and the Court should not refuse whatever aid the evidence' of motive may be to them. “It is always á just argument on behalf of one accused that there is no apparent motive to the perpetration of the crime. Men. do not act wholly without motive. On the other hand, proof of motive tends, in some degree, to render the act so far probable as to weaken tire presumptions of innocence, and corroborate evidence of guilt.” 3 Rice Ev., sec. 281. “Threats” are of course evidence to show ill-will, but not the only evidence of it. Ill-will can be shown to exist in many an instance where no threat has been made to injure the object of it. A dog may bite though he does not bark.
In State v. Green, supra,, as evidence tending to show motive, the State proved the declarations of defendant before the fire that he had no' money, but expected soon to have some, and that shortly after the fire he did have money. The Court says: “Facts tending to show a motive, although remote, are admissible in evidence.” That evidence no more proved that the defendant did the burning than' ill-will towards the overseer in this case. It was simply evidence tending to show as a motive that he was to be paid, as in this case, the motive that he would injure the overseer and 'perhaps cause his removal. It is slight evidence, and taken by itself, no evidence, but it fits into its place, taken in con*1047nection with the evidence pointing to defendant’s .guilt, by impairing the defense based on the want of all apparent motive. In the celebrated “Molly Maguire” trials in Pennsylvania, a most material element, -as explaining the motive of the defendants, was their ill-will towards the section bosses who had far less independent control of them than the overseer here of an owner not residing upon his farm. In the Wat Tyler insurrection in England (and in many another) the motive was no hostility to the King or the government, but to the tyranny of petty officials, and to secure their removal.
In State v. Rhodes, 111 N. C., 647, for burning a barn, the State was permitted to show that the defendant had made threats previous to the burning that he would do some injury to the son of the prosecutor. Threats are merely evidence of ill-will towards the son which could be “shown by declarations or acts just as well or. better,” says Roscoeis Criminal Evidence, 96, 740, cited in State v. Rash, 34 N. C., 389. The point is to show ill-will as a motive. In State v. Gailor, 71 N. C., 88, indictment for arson, the ill-will, as a motive, was shown by defendant’s declarations, there being no threats. In State v. Thompson, 97 N. C., 496, proof of ill-will against the son and grandson of the owner was admitted as evidence of motive. It is true the ill-will towards them was proved by threats, but the ill-will as a motive would have been just as competent if proven by defendant’s admissions or declarations, without threats.
Malice towards the son of the owner in State v. Rhodes, supra, and against the son and grandson in State v. Thompson, supra, was more remote than the ill-will here shown against the overseer and the direct motive to secure his dismissal. In Stephens’s Digest of Evidence, 36, it is said that any fact that supplies a motive for the act is competent, and *1048instances expressions of ill-will used many years before, against the deceased, by one charged with his murder; and in Wharton’s Criminal Evidence (9th Ed.), sec. 784, it is said that it is relevant to show as motive that the defendant was inflamed with animosity to a cause with which the injured person was identified.
The law as to ill-will as a motive for the perpetration of crime as stated in the authorities, is that while it should be weighed with caution by the jury it is to be left to¡ them to rebut the presumption which would arise from the absence of motive; that this ill-will may be shown by acts, declarations, admissions or threats, and that it need not be directly against the owner of the property destroyed (in arson cases), but may be animosity towards his son, his grandson or others connected with him or even animosity against a cause with which he is identified. There are well-established cases (in Ireland certainly) where the sole motive was animosity towards the political party to which the owner of the property belonged.
It is an innovation to reject the evidence of motive offered in this case, and the principle laid down, if followed, will limit, not increase, the facilities afforded the jury to arrive at the truth of a charge investigated by them.