State v. Beam

• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: WALKER, J.
• Citation: State v. Beam, 179 N.C. 768, 103 S.E. 370 (N.C. 1920)
• Decision Date: 02 June 1920
• Docket Number: 469.
• Parties: STATE v. BEAM.

103 S.E. 370

179 N.C. 768

STATE v. BEAM.

No. 469.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

June 2, 1920

Appeal from Superior Court, Iredell County; Shaw, Judge.

M. A Beam was convicted of selling liquor and of having liquor for sale, and he appeals. New trial.

In a prosecution for selling liquor and for having liquor for sale, evidence that a year before the transaction charged defendant had liquor in his possession and sold it to several persons was inadmissible for that state; the offenses not being connected with or related with each other, so that commission of first tended to show intent in committing second.

H. P Grier and Dorman Thompson, both of Statesville, for appellant.

The Attorney General and Frank Nash, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

WALKER J.

The defendant was indicted for selling liquor and for having liquor for sale. There was evidence as to the sale of the liquor and of its possession for the purpose of sale at Morrow's Grove camp meeting the first Sunday of August 1919. In order to show that the defendant had the liquor in his possession for sale the state proposed to prove that a year before the time of this transaction the defendant had liquor in his possession and sold the same to several persons. This evidence was admitted and the defendant excepted. The ruling was erroneous. When offenses are so connected with or related to each other that the commission of one tends to show the intent with which the other was committed, it becomes competent to introduce evidence of the commission of an offense of the same sort as that being investigated for the purpose of showing intent; but when the crimes are wholly independent of each other, even though they are crimes of the same kind, such evidence, being irrelevant, is inadmissible. 12 Cyc. 495; Gray v. Cartwright, 174 N.C. 49, 93 S.C. 432. There are some exceptions to the rule, but this case does not fall within any of them.

It was held in State v. Murphy, 84 N.C. 742, that evidence of a collateral offense of the same character and connected with that for which the defendant is being tried, and tending to prove his intent or guilty knowledge, when that is an essential element of the crime, is admissible. But the two offenses in this case have no such connection or relation as to make the possession and sale of liquor in Lincoln county evidence of the intent or purpose with which the defendant had possession of liquor in Iredell county one...