State v. Burnett
| Decision Date | 28 February 1917 |
| Docket Number | (No. 89.) |
| Citation | 91 S.E. 597 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. BURNETT. |
Appeal from Superior Court, Wayne County; Stacey, Judge.
Elizabeth Burnett was charged with keeping a bawdyhouse, and from the order overruling her motion to quash the indictment, she appeals. Appeal dismissed.
The defendant was charged in the "county court of Wayne county" with the crime of keeping a bawdyhouse. The county court was created by Public Local Laws of 1913, c. 697, and by section 4 is given "final original" jurisdiction of all misdemeanors committed in the county, "to wit, of all crimes the jurisdiction of which is now or may hereafter be given to justices of the peace, " and in addition thereto of the offenses specially named, and among them that of keeping a bawdyhouse, and at the end of section 4 it is provided as follows:
Section 3 of the act provides that: "The judge of said court shall have power to transfer causes, civil and criminal, pending therein to the superior court of Wayne county for trial, and the judge of the superior court shall have like power to transfer to said county court for trial criminal and civil actions pending in the superior court that are within the jurisdiction of the county court."
When this case was called for trial in the county court, the judge of said court transferred it to the superior court without the consent of the defendant and notwithstanding her objection thereto. In the superior court, the defendant moved to quash the indictment, upon the ground that the superior court had no jurisdiction of the offense, the county court having original, exclusive, and final jurisdiction of the same. The motion was overruled. Defendant excepted and appealed.
Langston, Allen & Taylor, of Goldsboro, for appellant.
Attorney General and R. H. Sykes, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
WALKER, J. (after stating the facts as above). [1] An appeal does not lie in this case, the judgment of the superior court being interlocutory and requiring the defendant to answer over to the indictment (respondeat ouster). It has been so held from the earliest period. State. v. Robinson, 8 N. C. 188; State v. McDowell, 84 N. C. 799; State v. Pollard, 83 N. C. 597; State v. Bailey, 65 N. C. 426; State v. Webb, 155 N. C. 426, 70 S. E. 1064. But we.will consider the question raised by the exception, as if it were properly before us, but merely for the purpose of deciding it as being important to the due administration of the law in the courts of the county and as we were specially requested by counsel to do so.
We are of the opinion that the ruling of Judge Stacey was correct. By the Public Local Laws of 1913, e. 697, the jurisdiction to hear and determine criminal causes is given to the county court subject to the provision of section 3 for a transfer of any case to the superior court when the presiding judge deems it proper that the particular case should be tried in the latter court. The clauses with reference to the "final original" and the "original, exclusive and final" jurisdiction of the court, as used in section 4 of the statute, are to be read in connection with the latter part of section 3 in regard to the transfer of cases from one court to the other. In other words, the Legislature simply created the county court and conferred jurisdiction upon it of certain criminal offenses, and this jurisdiction was made "original, exclusive and final, " unless the county court, in its sound discretion, should deem it expedient that any particular case should be sent to the superior court for trial. This was...
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State v. Humphries, 654.
......clearly expressed, whereas in the second, if prohibition were also its purpose, a more inappropriate choice of language to express the legislative intent could hardly have been selected. State v. Burnett, 173 N.C. 750, 91 S.E. 597. It is not to be supposed the lawmakers intended to execute a circular performance or to engage in a futile gesture. Garrison v. Southern R. Co., 150 N.C. 575, 64 S.E. 578. Moreover, there is reason in the method pursued by the General Assembly in ......
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Carroll v. Ragsdale
...... "it shall be the duty of the first grand jury[15 S.E.2d 211]empaneled at the fall term of the Superior Courts of the several counties of this State, to fix the compensation of jurors and court bailiffs of such county for the next succeeding year, such compensation not to exceed the sum of two ...Cairo Banking Co. v. Ponder, 131 Ga. 708, 63 S.E. 218; Roberts v. State, 4 Ga.App. 207, 60 S.E. 1082; State v. Burnett, 173 N.C. 750, 91 S.E. 597; Board of Supervisors v. Cox, 155 Va. 687, 156 S.E. 755; J. E. Moss Iron Works v. Jackson County Court, 89 W.Va. 367, ......
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State v. Baker
...does not determine the cause, an appeal does not lie from an order overruling a motion to quash an indictment or warrant. State v. Burnett, 173 N.C. 750, 91 S.E. 597; G.S. § 15-180. For this reason, the appeal is Appeal dismissed. ...