Klncade v. Bradshaw

• Citation: 10 N.C. 63
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decision Date: 30 June 1824
• Parties: KLNCADE v. BRADSHAW.—From Rowan.

10 N.C. 63

KLNCADE

v.BRADSHAW.—From Rowan.

SUPREME COURT of NORTH CAROLINA

JUNE TERM, 1824

In an action for slander, in charging a plaintiff with perjury, defendant is not bound in support of the plea of justification to produce such evidence as would convict the plaintiff if he were on trial for the offense.

CASE FOR SLANDER. The words spoken charged the plaintiff with the crime of perjury. Pleas, the general issue, justification, and the statute of limitations. The only point presented was whether, to support the plea of justification, it was necessary to do more than to produce such evidence as would raise a probable presumption of the plaintiff's guilt, or should it be such as would be requisite to convict the plaintiff of perjury on an indictment. The court below held that it should be such as would convict if the plaintiff were on trial for the offense. Under

the charge of the court a verdict was found for plaintiff, and the question was here argued on a rule to show cause why a new trial should not be granted.

TAYLOR, C. J. This case comes up upon an exception tothe judge's charge, which it is therefore, necessary to examine. It contains two positions. The first is that the defendant could only entitle himself to a verdict upon his plea of justification by giving such evidence as would be sufficient to convict the plaintiff if he were on trial for the offense. The second is that if the slanderous words had been spoken by the defendant, and the evidence did not satisfy the jury of their truth, the plaintiff was entitled to some damages.

This last position, as stating the true ground upon which that part of the case ought to have been left to the jury, is entirely unexceptionable, and could not furnish a reason for a new trial if it could be disconnected from the first one. But it plainly imports that the jury must be satisfied of the truth of the words spoken, not by such evidence as is sufficient to create conviction in ordinary cases of civil controversy, but by such evidence as will be sufficient to convict the plaintiff of perjury if he was on trial. We are, therefore, called upon to examine the correctness of this position. It may be laid down as a general rule that the doctrine of evidence in criminal prosecutions is the same as that in civil actions, the object of both being to arrive at truth.

But several exceptions have been introduced by statute; some by the necessity of the case, where the party injured is admitted to give testimony against an offender from whose conviction he is to derive some advantage to himself; and one founded upon the constitution of human nature, that in proportion to the magnitude of the offense juries are more or less disposed to be...