State v. Hardin

• Decision Date: 30 June 1837
• Citation: 19 N.C. 407
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. JOHN C. HARDIN.

19 N.C. 407

STATE

v.JOHN C. HARDIN.

SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA

JUNE TERM, 1837.

1. The evidence of an accomplice is undoubtedly competent, and may be acted on by the jury, as a warrant to convict, although entirely unsupported. It is, however, dangerous to act exclusively on such evidence; and therefore, the Court may properly caution the jury, and point out the grounds for requiring evidence confirmatory of some substantial parts of it. But the Court can do nothing more; and if the jury really yield faith to it, it is not only legal, but obligatory on their consciences to found their verdict upon it.

2. In an indictment for larceny, one cannot be convicted as a principal, unless he were actually or constructively present at the taking and carrying away of the goods. His previous assent to, or procurement of the caption and asportation, will not make him a principal, nor will his subsequent reception of the thing stolen, or his aiding in concealing or disposing of it, have that effect.

3. In an indictment, under the act of 1779, (Rev. c. 142,) for seducing and conveying away a slave, it was held by the Court, GASTON, Judge., dissenting, that the seduction, and conveying away must concur to constitute the offence; and that one, who did not himself seduce or aid in seducing the slave, but only assisted in the conveying away, could not be convicted as a principal felon.

The prisoner was one of those indicted in Rutherford county, jointly with John Haney, whose case came up to this Court, and has been decided during the present term. The trial was, as to the prisoner Hardin, removed to the county of Burke, where he was convicted upon both the counts in the indictment; the one charging that the prisoner and the others did steal and carry away a negro-slave by the name of Eli, then and there being the property of Nancy Davis; and the other, that "the said John C. Hardin, John Haney, &c, one other negro-man slave named Eli, then and there being the property of Nancy Davis, and then and there in the possession of the said Nancy, feloniously by seduction and violence, against the will and consent of her, the said Nancy Davis, owner as aforesaid, did take and convey away from the possession of her, the said owner, with an intention the said slave to sell, dispose of and convert to their own use, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, &c."

Upon the trial, the negro in question was proved to be the property of Nancy Davis, as charged in theindictment; and it was also proved, that he was stolen, or seduced or went from her plantation in Rutherford, on the fourth Saturday of July, 1836.

One Robins was then produced as a witness for the state. He testified that on Sunday, the next day after the disappearance of the slave, he saw, at a meeting-house in the neighbourhood, Haney, one of the accused, with whom, as well as with the prisoner, he, the witness, had been acquainted about a year. Haney informed him, that a negro had come to him the preceding night a little before day; and then requested witness to go that evening to the prisoner, Hardin, and tell Hardin to meet him at a place called Webb's old field that night, about an hour after dark; and also that he, the witness, should accompany Hardin. In the course of the conversation Haney remarked, "Hardin has missed the one he has been trying to secure; but good luck will come after bad. Tell him this boy has come to me." The witness made the communication to the prisoner, Hardin; and they went together to the place and at the time appointed, and there found Haney. Upon a whistle by Haney, a large negro-man came up to them; and, in reply to Hardin's question, where did he come from ? Haney said, "he came from the widow Davis." Haney then remarked, "You, Robins, must take him off. It will be a safe trip, as the widow has not energy to press like some people. In the mean time Hardin will keep him till you get ready to start." That was then agreed on by the three; and Haney left them—remarking to Hardin, "You know our agreement;" to which Hardin replied, "yes," and added, "it will do." The prisoner, the witness and the negro then went together within half a mile of Hardin's house; when Hardin suggested that there might be some person at his house, and proposed that the negro and the witness should stay in the woods until he should go to see, and return to them. Hardin did not return that night, but came the next morning with food for them. It was then agreed between Hardin, Robins and the negro, that Robins should take the negro to South Carolina and there sell him; that he should go that day, and make his preparations; andthat the negro should meet him the next day at a point designated on the road. The witness accordingly proceeded, and on the next day the negro met him according to appointment; and Robins and another associate, named Williams, carried him to South Carolina and sold him for nine hundred dollars; of which part was paid to Williams; and upon the

return of Robins to this state, the sum of one hundred and forty-five dollars was paid to Haney, and two hundred and fifty-five dollars to the prisoner, Hardin. Upon his cross-examination, the witness stated that his habits had been moral and upright until he had become acquainted with the three persons charged in this indictment, who influenced him to join an association which they called a club, and represented to have members spread over the country; and that this was his first adventure in the way of selling slaves. But when further pressed, he admitted that he had before sold a free negro, named Wingfield for one thousand dollars, of which he gave two hundred dollars to Wingfield himself for agreeing to be sold; two hundred dollars to a man in South Carolina, for helping him to sell the free negro; one hundred dollars to Haney, and ninety dollars to the prisoner, Hardin; and that he spent the residue himself. He also stated, that when he paid to Haney his share of the price got for Mrs. Davis's negro, Haney said to him and Hardin, "You know our plan is to steal the negro again and sell him over, so you must make up something to pay for doing that:" upon which each of them gave Hanev twenty-five dollars more. In the division of the money, Hardin insisted upon having the largest share, in consequence of "his having tried so long to get a negro, in which he met with bad luck."

The witness, in the course of his examination, stated a great number of minute incidents as occurring on his journey; as to which his testimony was sustained, and in some points contradicted, by that of others. But he was not corroborated directly in any part of his testimony relative to the transactions with Hardin in particular.

The counsel for the prisoner, moved the Court to instruct the jury, that they ought entirely to disregardthe testimony given by Robins, the accomplice, because it was not supported, in any material part, by which a personal agency of Hardin was shown. The counsel further moved the Court to instruct the jury, that if they should believe the said evidence of Robins, yet they ought not to find the prisoner guilty; because upon that evidence the prisoner was not a principal in the felony committed, but only an accessory.

His Honor Judge Pearson refused to give either

instruction as prayed. Upon the first point he charged the jury, "that if the narrative of the accomplice, Robins, from the manner in which it was told, and the matter stated, and from the confirmation it received in many material parts by other testimony, carried to their minds a full and entire conviction of its truth, they might convict the prisoner, although the narrative was not confirmed in any material part, in which Hardin had a personal agency; that it was more satisfactory, when the evidence of an accomplice was supported in the latter particular; but it was not indispensable, provided the jury, from the other particulars, were satisfied the witness was entitled in fact to full credit."

Upon the other point, his Honor charged the jury, "that if they were satisfied from the evidence, that the prisoner, the witness, and Haney, had entered into an agreement to steal or seduce away negroes from their owners, and have them run off to South Carolina or elsewhere, and sold for the benefit of those concerned; and that in pursuance of such agreement, Haney had procured the negro Eli, mentioned in the indictment, to leave his owner, Nancy Davis, and come to him, and afterwards to meet the prisoner Hardin, the witness Robins, and Haney in Webb's old field; and that the slave was there delivered by Haney to Hardin, and received by Hardin with a full knowledge on the part of Hardin, that he was the property of Nancy Davis, and had been stolen or seduced from her; and that Hardin kept the negro for a day, and then procured him to meet Robins and Williams on the road; and that they ran him off to South Carolina, and there sold him in pursuance of the said agreement,and divided the money, as deposed to by the witness, Robins; then the jury were authorized to find the prisoner guilty under the indictment."

The jury found the prisoner guilty; and he moved for a new trial for error alleged in the foregoing instructions: which was refused, and sentence of death passed; from which the prisoner appealed.

The evidence given on the trial was not stated in the exceptions of the prisoner, or in the case made out by the judge. It was stated in the transcript that it was deemed unnecessary to set forth the evidence in detail, as it was much the same as in the case of the State v. Haney, ante 390, which

had gone to the Supreme Court from Rutherford upon the same indictment. The attorney-general, however, did not think it proper to insist upon the omission, supposing it to be mere oversight; and consented to amend the record in this case by inserting in it the evidence which appeared, by the record in the other case, to have been given on that...