State v. Hammonds

• Decision Date: 16 June 1939
• Docket Number: 651.
• Citation: 3 S.E.2d 439,216 N.C. 67
• Parties: STATE v. HAMMONDS.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

3 S.E.2d 439

216 N.C. 67

STATE v. HAMMONDS.

No. 651.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

June 16, 1939

The defendant was tried on a bill of indictment for the murder of Lacy Brumbles, convicted of murder in the first degree and judgment of death by asphyxiation was pronounced by the Court below.

The evidence was to the effect that Lacy Brumbles was killed by defendant. Brumbles had a position with the State as a guard for a chain-gang in Robeson County. He had been sick with a cold and cough and had been at home on that account for several days. On Sunday morning, February 5th, 1939, about 8:30 o'clock, he left his home in a little 29 Ford roadster. He had an officer's badge and pistol in a holster in his belt, which he carried as an officer. He was married three years before and was 35 years old. He went to the State camp, about three miles from Lumberton. Defendant was an Indian and had served a term for manufacturing liquor and was released that Sunday morning. He was a cripple, one leg and one hand partly off. Brumbles arrived at the camp about 8:45, he changed his coat and left in his Ford roadster in the direction of Pembroke. He went to the home of James Hammonds, father of defendant, and told him he had promised to bring Bricey Hammonds home but he had left the camp. Brumbles and the father of Bricey Hammonds went to hunt for defendant, but did not find him and returned to the father's home and found defendant there. He had walked home. Brumbles told defendant he had gone to the camp to take him home but had missed him. They stayed there some half hour and the three went to Pembroke in the roadster. The father got out of the car at a garage and was to be picked up at Son Lowery's filling station. Brumble and defendant went off and stayed about an hour and picked up the father who testified for defendant in part:

"When they came back Bricey looked to me about half foolish, when he drove up he had his head hanging down that way, and my first cousin says, he told me, 'Jim', he said to me 'Bricey is drunk, you better get in the car with him and go on, the law will get him.' I got in the car and we come on. When I got in on the side that put Bricey in the middle, and he had his head throwed up against my left shoulder. I took him to be drunk. Mr. Brumbles had drunk some, I could smell it on him when me and him were taking the tire off the wheel. ***" They started to the father's home and the tire to the roadster leaked down. Brumbles got an inner-tube out of the car and was putting it in the tire. The following witnesses for the State testified in part:

Harvard Chavis: "The automobile was out on the edge of the road parked to the right-hand side of the road, kinder outside there was room enough for other cars to pass; this car was headed south. *** I saw these three men. When I first observed them Mr. Hammonds and Bricey were not doing anything but this other fellow was working on a tire, he was taking it off on account of its going down. I didn't know him at that time. When I walked up I spoke to Bricey and me and him spoke a few words, I asked him when he come home, he told me that morning, and said he was going to stay; said he had just come from the prison camp, he had not been home in four months and he was going to stay when he got there, said he come that morning. Nobody else in the crowd said anything to me right then. I stayed there. Something was said about me helping fix the tire, Bricey was the first one asked me, he said 'You better help fix the tire', I told him I reckon I better get on, it was looking cloudy, I was going to get kindling. This Guard, Bricey and his father were there then; I mean the deceased when I say the Guard. At the time this conversation took place me and Bricey were in the edge of the road and the Guard was over in front of the wheel working on the wheel; me and Bricey were right in front of the car; James Hammonds was around on the other side kinder back of the car like, across the car to where we were standing, he was kinder back behind it like. I stood there about a minute I suppose and tried to decide whether to help them with the tire or not; Bricey acted like he had had a drink and I didn't know what shape this other man was in he had his coat on at the time and I didn't see no badge or gun and I didn't know who he was. He must have got hot taking the tire off and he taken his coat off, walked around in front of the car and threw it in the seat, and when he threw it in the seat I seen his badge and pistol. His badge was on his shirt or vest under his coat, right along down there (indicating the location on his body), and his pistol was in his holster on his right side hip. So when I seen his pistol and badge I decided it would be all right to help him with the tire. I said, 'All right, I think I will help with the tire since the cloud's coming up,' looked pretty gloomy, like he might get wet. I started around to try to help him as much as I could. He taken the old inner tube out and pitched it in the back of the car and he had another inner tube and put it around in the tire; he was squatted down; he put the tire on the car and when it got around tight James Hammonds was holding the tire like this and this Guard had inserted a screw driver on the right-hand side down here over on this side and was trying to insert the other tire tool in there; I was in the center and if he got it in there I was going to push down. We all had hold of the tire, I was on my knees and he was squatted down over here on the right, I was immediately to his left, and James was standing kinder to the running board holding all he could. James was to my left and I was in the middle. Me and James were on our knees and this man he squatted down, kinder short man like. At that time Bricey was standing kinder behind me, behind the Guard. While we were kneeling down there and inserted the screw driver to get this other tool down here for me to push it down, I heard a pop and felt the heat side of my head and it kinder deafened me and I jumped up and looked around, Bricey had a pistol in his hand, I seen some smoke around close up and he had a pistol in his hand, and his father he looked at the man first and when he hollered, he said 'Bricey you have shot that man,' and I happened to look over there, and there was the man, he had fell on his face kinder against the wheel, bottom of the wheel, the inside rim, he fell with his face kinder down there and the blood was gushing out of his mouth and nose, and when I seen that, kinder dazed me for a few minutes and I stood there and looked at Bricey and he still had the pistol in his hand like this, and his father was coming around me and around him and he come around me and him and went to the road and Bricey hollered to him and said, 'Wait, Pa', and he turned his back to me, and when he did I grabbed him around the waist and arms from behind. I grabbed him and held him for his father to come back and take the pistol away from him, so his father came back and wrung the pistol out of his hand and when he wrung the pistol out of his hand I turned him aloose. When his father got the pistol, he said, 'Good Lord, what did you mean by shooting that man?' he told him he hadn't done nothing, to keep his mouth shut; that was what Bricey said to him. When I turned Bricey loose I looked back to see if he had fell over, he didn't have any pistol, it wasn't in his holster, the pistol that was in his holster was gone. The pistol was in his holster when he squatted down to fix the tire. When James got the pistol, James told the boy to go on home and stay until he got there."

Brumbles was taken to Baker Sanatorium in Lumberton. The Chief Surgeon, Dr. H. M. Baker, removed the bullet: "I have an opinion from my examination, satisfactory to myself as to what caused the death of Lacy Brumbles; he died as a result of the bullet entering the brain. Brumbles died in my hospital about seven o'clock Sunday night."

The tire was fixed near Inman Bridge. Ed Martin: "Brumbles was down on his knees and hands and his head was against the wheel of the car when we got there; it was the right front wheel. When we got there Warrix and Mr. Herbert Lowry and Harvard Chavis taken him up and I went around and cranked the car up and brought him to Baker Sanatorium. I observed that he was bloody, back of his head, the brains was running out and back of his head the clots of blood in the forehead. I brought him to Baker Sanatorium. *** When we got back there Herbert Lowry had Bricey under arrest. I talked with the defendant, Bricey Hammonds, and he told me he had not been along that road that day, the road the car was on where we got Brumbles at. Brumbles was living when we found him; he was living when I left Baker Sanatorium. It was after twelve o'clock when Bricey told me he hadn't been along that road that day; just after we got back from bringing the man to the hospital he said, in the presence of Sergeant and myself, he hadn't been along that road that day. At the time we got Brumbles from off the ground there at the car he had his coat off; he had a holster for a pistol; there was nothing in it. I Stopped at Harvard Chavis's before I brought this man; the shooting was approximately fifty yards from his house and I went and got the pistol; Harvard Chavis went in the house and got a pistol and gave it to me. He (Harvard) told me he and Bricey's father, James Hammonds taken the pistol away from him; said Jim told him to keep the pistol until some officer or other came after it and I went to the house and he delivered the pistol to me. When he turned it over to me I opened it and I saw an empty cartridge in the chamber. The pistol was entirely loaded with the exception of one empty cartridge in the...