State v. Adair

• Decision Date: 31 January 1872
• Citation: 66 N.C. 298
• Parties: STATE v. COLUMBUS ADAIR and others.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

66 N.C. 298

STATE

v.COLUMBUS ADAIR and others.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1872.

1. The 12th section of Article 4 of the Constitution, which provides “the State shall be divided into twelve districts, for each of which a Judge shall be chosen, who shall hold a Court in each county, at least twice in each year, to continue for two weeks,” does not by express words, or necessary implication restrict the Legislature from passing an Act authorizing a Judge under certain circumstances to continue a Court longer than two weeks.

2. Therefore, sec. 397, C. C. P., which authorizes a Judge, “in case the term of a Court shall expire while a trial for felony, &c., is in progress, to continue the same as long as may be necessary for the purposes of the case, is not unconstitutional.

3. Where a witness in a case of homicide stated to another person that she had received several severe wounds, and believed she would die, and desired a a neighbor to be sent for; that she wanted to “tell all about it, and who did it,” Held that such statements were competent as confirmatory testimony, and and the fact that the witness said she would die, would furnish no ground for their exclusion.

4. It is competent for a magistrate to state what a witness swore before him in regard to the homicide, although he afterwards committed the statement to writing. Such statement could only be referred to, to refresh his memory, and was properly treated as a memorandum.

5. Where one of the prisoners in this case was present and heard a conversation between the magistrate and his (prisoner's) father, and saw the confusion of the father when a certain statement was made in regard to the principal State's witness, Held, that this fact was admissible as confirmatory testimony.

6. After jurors are sworn, but before they are empanelled, it is competent for the Court to allow a challenge for cause.

This was an

indictment tor the murder of W. H. Steadman alias Lee, tried before Cloud, Judge, at Fall Term 1871 of Henderson Superior Court:

Polly Weston, the principal witness on the part of the State, swore that she was the wife of one Silas Weston, that she had four children, the deceased William Herbert Steadman alias Lee, being one of them. That she lived with her husband and these children, in Rutherford county, N. C. That on the the night of the 26th of April last, about one hour in the night, she and three children had risen from the supper-table, leaving Silas Weston, her husband, at the table feeding the baby. She heard the growl of a dog in the yard, and went to a crack in the end of the cabin in which they lived, to see what had disturbed the dog. On putting her face to the crack she was fired on, the powder burning her eye, and she staggered back, exclaiming “I'm killed. God have mercy on me!” The door was then burst open, and Govan Adair, one of the prisoners, as he entered the house, fired on her husband while while he was seated at the table, and again as he retreated to the other end of the house. Govan Adair and Martin Baynard, another one of the prisoners, then seized her husband, dragged him down and cut his throat. As Columbus Adair, the other prisoner, came into the house, he fired on David and Theodosia, two of the children, and then shot the deceased. The two first named children were killed instantly. The deceased breathed twice, with a gurgling sound, and exclaming, “they have killed me!” While the shooting and cutting her husband's throat was going on, witness attempted to get under the bed. Govan Adair and Martin Baynard dragged her out, and Govan Adair attempted to shoot her, but his pistol did not fire. He and Baynard then gave her seven severe wounds, leaving her, as they had supposed, dead; they then attempted to cut her infant's throat, set the bedding on fire, and fled from the house. She lay upon the floor, until the flames began to burn her hair, when, finding her infant still alive, she took it and placed it outside the house, returned, and dragged out Theodosia, whom she left lying just outside the burning house, dead, being unable to carry her further on account of a wound in her arm and shoulder. She made her escape to a Mrs. Williams' house, about a mile from the scene of the murder. She gave to Mrs. Williams and her husband, substantially the above account of the murder of her family, and related it to others whom she saw that night and next day, pretty much in the same way.

The next morning the house was found in ashes, and the remains of three human bodies, corresponding in size to Silas Weston and the children, were found on the site of the burnt house, and the child Theodosia was found dead with a bullet hole through her breast, and her body burnt and lying where the witness Polly Weston said she had left it, when she escaped from the flames the night before.

In the examination of Polly Weston, defendant insisted that in her narrative she should be confined to the statement of facts connected with the killing of Wm H. Steadman, and not be allowed to detail the particulars of the other homicides. This objection was overruled by the Court.

Mrs. Williams was examined by the State to prove what Polly Weston had said to her. when she came to her house, on the night of the alleged homicide. She stated, “That Polly asked me to send for Mrs. Morgan, who lived a short distance from witness, that she wanted to tell her all about it, and who did it, before she died, as she expected and believed she would die.” Objection was made to declarations of Polly Weston, that “she would die, or expected to die,” from the injuries which she had received. The Solicitor insisted that it was proper as confirmatory of Polly Weston's testimony, the defendant's counsel having impeached her testimony in the cross examination, &c., and she was farther impeached in the course of the trial. This testimony was admitted by the Court.

Hanes, a magistrate, was examined to show what statement Polly Weston had made to him on the next morning after the trial. He said that he swore Polly but did not then take down her statement; but afterwards, on the same day, wrote it down. He was proceeding to tell what she had said, on oath, about the murder. This was objected to, but admitted by the Court. The written statement was not offered, nor its loss accounted for.

It was also in evidence, that when Hanes, the magistrate, went with a posse to the house of Henderson Adair, (father of two of the defendants,) the next morning after the homicide, to...