State v. Ballard
| Citation | 79 N.C. 627 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina |
| Decision Date | 30 June 1878 |
| Parties | STATE v. JOSEPH BALLARD and SUSAN STANLY. |
INDICTMENT for Fornication and Adultery tried at Spring Term, 1878, of JONES Superior Court, before Kerr, J.
The defendants were indicted for lewd and lascivious cohabitation under the statute, Bat. Rev. ch. 32 § 46. It was proved on the trial that they were unmarried persons, had lived for five years some three hundred yards apart, on land belonging to the male defendant, and were frequently together in the fields; that during this period the woman had given birth to several children, of whom all but one were dead, and that the defendant, Joseph Ballard, had been seen with the living child in his lap caressing it and speaking of it as his child, and on another occasion had been heard to say he believed the others were also his children. To none of the evidence was objection made by either defendant.
The Court instructed the jury that in order to convict, they must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants, within two years before the finding of the bill, had been in lewd and lascivious intercourse, and the woman had been in the habit of surrendering her body to the gratification of the man. The jury found the defendants guilty, and from the judgment thereon they appealed.
Attorney General, for the State .
No counsel for the defendants.
SMITH, C. J. (After stating the case as above.)
No exceptions to the introduction of the evidence or to the charge of the Judge are set out in the record, and the case expressly states that no objection was made to the evidence admitted by either of the defendants. We have repeatedly declared that in civil actions this Court will not pass on exceptions not taken by the appellant in the Court below, and will then require a full statement of the facts out of which they arise. This rule is not entirely applicable to criminal prosecutions, in respect to which it is our duty to see from the record and accompanying statement of what transpired at the trial, that the law was correctly expounded and administered.
The statute under which the indictment was found defines the offence and declares in positive terms “that the admissions or confessions of one shall not be received as evidence against the other.” The act of caressing the child and the use of words of endearment while doing so, are manifestations of natural affection which may not fall within the prohibitions of the law. But...
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State v. Davis
...It is unbending in its severity: The admissions or confessions of the one 'shall not be received in evidence against the other. ' State v. Ballard, 79 N.C. 627. testimony of the principal witness inculpated both parties. To the extent that it was self-incriminatory, it constituted an admiss......
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State v. Howell
...criminal and civil cases is that exceptions to the evidence must be taken in apt time during the trial; if not, they are waived. State v. Ballard, 79 N.C. 627; Taylor v. Plummer, 105 N.C. 56, 11 S.E. 266; Lowe v. Elliott, 107 N.C. 718, 12 S.E. 383; Alley v. Howell, 141 N.C. 113, 53 S.E. 821......
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State v. Black
...698, 213 S.E.2d 255 (1975), death sentence vacated, 428 U.S. 902, 96 S.Ct. 3203, 49 L.Ed.2d 1206 (1976). This Court held in State v. Ballard, 79 N.C. 627, 629 (1878), that a defendant in a criminal case be silent and acquiesce in the introduction of any evidence which on objection made in a......
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State v. Warren
...to an exception where the introduction or use of the evidence is forbidden by statute in the furtherance of public policy. State v. Ballard, 79 N.C. 627; State v. Gee, 92 N.C. 756; Broom v. Broom, 130 N.C. 562, 41 S.E. 673; Hooper v. Hooper, 165 N.C. 605, 81 S.E. 933; State v. Reid, 178 N.C......