State v. Gray

• Decision Date: 05 May 1890
• Citation: 11 S.E. 422,106 N.C. 734
• Parties: STATE v. GRAY.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

11 S.E. 422

106 N.C. 734

STATE v. GRAY.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

May 5, 1890

Indictment for larceny, tried at spring term, 1890, of Watauga superior court, before BYNUM, J. The defendant was charged with stealing a sheep, and the exception taken on the trial was to the instructions of the court to the jury, upon the question of sufficiency of the evidence as to asportation. The testimony of Woody, the prosecutor, was that he went to his field where his flock of sheep were grazing, and saw the defendant in an old one-room house upon the premises, with three or four sheep, and also saw him catch one of them, and thereupon the defendant leaped from a window, and fled. Some plank had been placed across the door of the house to prevent the sheep from entering, and when witness got there upon this occasion, and after defendant escaped, the witness discovered that the plank had been taken down, and differently arranged from what they were when he last saw them, but still securing the door. One of the sheep found in the house had been hobbled, and witness found that the hobble had been cut from one of the feet. The defendant's counsel asked the court to charge the jury that there was not sufficient evidence of asportation. This was refused, and the jury were instructed that, if they found the facts to be that the sheep were grazing in the field, and defendant drove them into the house, and cut the cord attached to one of them, and had the sheep under his control, and would have taken it away, with the intention of appropriating it to his own use, but for the reason that he was prevented from doing so by the arrival of Woody, and them jumped out of the window and made his escape there was sufficient asportation, and the defendant would be guilty; the burden of proof being upon the state to satisfy the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the defendant's guilt. There was a verdict of guilty; judgment; appeal by defendant.

Evidence that the owner of sheep saw defendant with three or four sheep in an old house in a field where the sheep were grazing, that defendant caught one of them, and that after he fled it was found that the hobbles had been cut from its feet, and that the plank which secured the door to keep the sheep out had been moved, is sufficient to prove asportation.

The Attorney General, for the State.

SHEPHERD J.

We are very clearly of the opinion that there was ample testimony to go to...