Court Opinion

ID: 9568315
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:02:30.760916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:36.359268
License: Public Domain

Justice Higgins
dissenting.
The evidence is fairly stated in the opinion of the Court except in one particular. The death certificate filed by the physician quoted in the opinion was made on the basis of the doctor’s preliminary examination and before the autopsy.
*576Fairly construed, the evidence shows the deceased advanced to the attack and struck the first blow. True, the State’s witness stated the blow struck by the defendant with the pipe “knocked his eyeballs out of his head.” The autopsy examination failed to disclose any injuries to the eyes, skull or brain and that death resulted from hardening of the arteries.
The poor old woman testified: “My husband (deceased) jumped up and grabbed a rubber boot and ran outside. He hit Ellis Luther on the arm with that boot and then fell to thé ground . . .” After identifying the piece of pipe the defendant used, the witness said “There are a million down there (the yard where the trouble occurred) just like it. . . . Prior to being struck . . . Baxter previously was sick with flu and he was weak. He had heart trouble.”
The State’s evidence, in my opinion, was insufficient, to go to the jury and sustain a finding that death resulted as a result of the defendant’s wrongful act. The case of State v. Horner, 248 N.C. 342, tends to support the court’s decision in this easel In Horner, I thought at the time it was heard that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of death by a wrongful act. For that reason I dissented and for the same reason I dissent now.