State v. Cash
Decision Date | 17 October 1951 |
Docket Number | No. 292,292 |
Citation | 234 N.C. 292,67 S.E.2d 50 |
Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Parties | STATE, v. CASH et al. |
Harry McMullan, Atty. Gen., and Ralph Moody, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Stover P. Dunagan, Rutherfordton, C. C. Horn and James Arthur West, Jr., Shelby, for defendant, appellant.
The bill of indictment charged the defendant with willfully and wantonly and for a fraudulent purpose burning or procuring to be burned the dwelling house owned and occupied by him. G.S. § 14-65.
The evidence offered by the State in support of this charge was sufficient to carry the case to the jury, and there was verdict of guilty as charged in the bill.
The defendant assigns error in the following instruction given by the court to the jury:
It is obvious that the court in giving this instruction inadvertently omitted material elements of the offense with which defendant was charged. The burning or procuring to be burned the dwelling house occupied by defendant to constitute a criminal offense must have been done willfully and wantonly, or for a fraudulent purpose. To convict the defendant under this bill something more must be found than the fact that the house was burned, and that it was done at the instance and request of the defendant. By the terms of the statute an essential element of the crime charged was that it be done willfully and wantonly or for a fraudulent purpose. State v. McDonald, 133 N.C. 680, 45 S.E. 582; State v. Morgan, 136 N.C. 628, 48 S.E. 670; State v. Falkner, 182 N.C. 793, 108 S.E. 756, 17 A.L.R. 986; State v. Rawls, 202 N.C. 397, 162 S.E. 899; State v. McLean, 209 N.C. 38, 182 S.E. 700.
True, the court at the outset of his charge stated generally the language of the bill of indictment, but nowhere else was any reference made to the elements of the offense necessary to be found by the jury before they could convict, and at the close of the charge the jury was clearly and pointedly instructed that there were 'just two things' for them to find, that the house was burned and it was burned at...
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State v. McLaughlin
...2d, Arson and Related Offenses § 10 (1962); 6 C.J.S. Arson § 3; State v. Thomas, 241 N.C. 337, 85 S.E.2d 300 (1955); State v. Cash, 234 N.C. 292, 67 S.E.2d 50 (1951); State v. Anderson, 228 N.C. 720, 47 S.E.2d 1 (1948). See also, Perkins on Criminal Law 217 (2d ed. 1969). Therefore, intoxic......
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Hicks v. Reese, C-C-84-677-P.
...(3) for a fraudulent purpose. See N.C.Gen.Stat. § 14-65 (1981); State v. Brackett, 306 N.C. 138, 291 S.E.2d 660 (1982); and State v. Cash, 234 N.C. 292, 67 S.E.2d 50 The evidence at trial showed that a week before the fire Petitioner solicited another to burn the house for $2,000.00. (Tr. p......
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