State v. Brown

• Decision Date: 10 December 1958
• Docket Number: No. 577,577
• Citation: 249 N.C. 271,106 S.E.2d 232
• Parties: STATE, v. Leslie BROWN, Jr.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Page 232

106 S.E.2d 232

249 N.C. 271

STATE, v. Leslie BROWN, Jr.

No. 577

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Dec. 10, 1958

T. W. Bruton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

Clark, Clark & Grady, Elizabethtown, for defendant-appellant.

WINBORNE, Chief Justice.

This appeal presents in the main two questions:

1. Is the evidence offered upon the trial in Superior Court, when considered in the light most favorable to the State, giving to the State the benefit of every reasonable intendment thereon, and every reasonable inference therefrom, as is done in testing its probative value on motion to nonsuit, sufficient to take the case to the jury on the first degree murder charge in compliance with the statute G.S. § 14-17?

In this connection it is appropriate to recur to applicable principles of law.

In State v. Hawkins, 214 N.C. 326, 199 S.E. 284, 289, the principles and authorities in support thereof are set forth as follows:

'Murder in the first degree is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice and with premeditation and deliberation. * * * The intentional killing of a human being with a deadly weapon implies malice and, if nothing else appears, constitutes murder in the second degree * * * 'The additional elements of premeditation and deliberation, necessary to constitute murder in the first degree, are not presumed from a killing with a deadly weapon. They must be established beyond a reasonable doubt, and found by the jury, before a verdict of murder in the first degree can be rendered against the prisoner.' * * * ' Premeditation means 'thought of beforehand' for some length of time, however short.' * * * ' Deliberation means that the act is done in cool state of blood. It does not mean brooding over it or reflecting upon it for a week, a day, or an hour, or any other appreciable length of time, but it means an intention to kill, executed by the defendant in a cool state of blood, in furtherance of a fixed design to gratify a feeling of revenge, or to accomplish some unlawful purpose, and not under the influence of a violent passion, suddenly aroused by some lawful or just cause or legal provocation'. * * * ' In determining the question of premeditation and deliberation, it is proper for the jury to take into consideration the conduct of the defendant, before and after, as well as at the time of, the homicide, and all attending circumstances'. * * *.'

Subsequent decisions of this Court uniformly follow these principles.

And in the light of these principles applied to the evidence in case in hand, this Court is unable to say that in no view is there no evidence in support of the charge of murder in the first degree. Hence the case was properly submitted to the jury.

2. But as to the second question, do the exceptions taken in the course of the trial in Superior Court, and assigned as error, disclose error prejudicial to defendant, this Court holds that the answer is 'Yes', specifically in respect to ruling to which exception No. 3 relates.

This arose in this manner: After testifying as to threats made to him on morning of May 8, 1957, by Joe Mitchell Smith, defendant recalled the witness Neimiah Mitchell, who had testified for the State to the effect that Joe Mitchell Smith appeared to be 'a little mad or angry' that morning when he, Smith, took him, Mitchell, his wife and daughter to the farm of 'Mr. Joe Lennon' to pull tobacco plants, and that he talked with Smith that morning. And upon such recall Neimiah Mitchell testified: 'Mr. Smith come by about 7:30 A. M. on May 8th to get me, my wife and my daughter; I talked with him before the others got to the pickup. Mr. Smith told me he had had some words with my buddy. I asked him who was my buddy; he said Leslie Junior Brown. I asked him what did he do, and he said plowing the road up, and Mr. Smith said he was going to kill Leslie Junior Brown or Leslie was going to kill him; he was going back to get his rifle * * * I am not related to the defendant. I have no interest in this case.' And by...