State v. Edwards

• Decision Date: 28 April 1937
• Docket Number: 505.
• Parties: STATE v. EDWARDS.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

191 S.E. 1

211 N.C. 555

STATE v. EDWARDS.

No. 505.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

April 28, 1937

Appeal from Superior Court, Gaston County; T. B. Finley, Emergency Judge.

Raymond Edwards was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.

New trial.

In murder prosecution, evidence of defendant's drunken condition, at time of homicide, was competent to be considered by jury on question of premeditation and deliberation.

Criminal prosecution tried upon indictment charging the defendant with the murder of his wife, Fannie Edwards.

The deceased was killed on the night of November 5, 1936. The evidence tending to connect the defendant with the homicide comes from a written confession in which the defendant says he killed his wife with an axe, but in the same confession he states and reiterates that he was drunk and did not know what he was doing. The defendant offered no evidence.

With respect to the statements in the confession tending to show that the defendant was drunk, the court in its charge said to the jury: "This is evidence offered by the defendant in his own behalf and the law says that you shall 'take it with a grain of salt."' Exception.

And immediately following: "The State contends that there was no evidence to show that he was drunk that evening outside of the evidence of the defendant-evidence made in his own behalf. The law says that you must take these statements with care and caution because he is liable to testify to his own interest-if a man's life is at stake." Exception.

Verdict Guilty of murder in the first degree.

Judgment Death by asphyxiation.

The defendant appeals, assigning errors.

Ernest R. Warren and Charles E. Hamilton, Jr., both of Gastonia, for appellant.

A. A F. Seawell, Atty. Gen., and Harry McMullan, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.

STACY Chief Justice.

In telling the jury that they should take the exculpatory part of defendant's confession "with a grain of salt," the learned judge was evidently under the impression that the defendant had testified in his own behalf. In this, he was mistaken. The defendant did not go upon the witness stand. The confession was offered in evidence by the State, and upon the confession, the prosecution grounded its case. State v. Cohoon, 206 N.C. 388, 174 S.E. 91. The defendant was entitled to have the confession considered as given, in its entirety, with whatever views or theories it afforded. State v. Jones, 79 N.C. 630; 1 R.C.L., 585.

In Burnett v. People, 204 Ill. 208, 68 N.E. 505, 511, 66 L.R.A. 304, 98 Am.St.Rep. 206, the following instruction was held to be a correct statement of the law: "The court instructs the jury that, where a confession of the prisoner charged with a crime is offered in evidence, the whole of the confession so offered and testified to must be taken together, as well [as] that part which makes in favor of the accused as that part which makes against him; and if the part of the statement which is in favor of the defendant is not disproved by other testimony in the case, and is not improbable or untrue, considered in connection with all the other testimony of the case, then that part of the statement is entitled to as much consideration from the jury as the parts which make against the defendant."

Again this original misapprehension seems to have led the court into another error. The jury was instructed to consider the "evidence of the defendant," meaning the exculpatory statements in the confession, "with care and caution because he is liable to testify to his own interest-if a man's life is at stake." It is conceded in the State's brief that, had the defendant testified in his own behalf, this instruction could hardly be said to meet the test laid down in State v. Ray, 195 N.C. 619, 143 S.E. 143, 144: "* * * where a defendant, in the trial of a criminal prosecution, testifies in his own behalf, it is error for the trial court to instruct the jury to scrutinize his testimony and to receive it with grains of allowance, because of his interest in the verdict, without adding that, if they find the witness worthy of belief, they should give as full credit to his testimony, as any other witness notwithstanding his interest," citing, in support of the position, State v. Graham, 133 N.C. 645, 45 S.E. 514, State v. Lee, 121 N.C. 544, 28 S.E. 552, State v. Collins, 118 N.C. 1203, 24 S.E. 118, State v. Holloway, 117...