State v. Harman
| Decision Date | 31 January 1878 |
| Citation | 78 N.C. 515 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. E. C. HARMAN. |
INDICTMENT for Murder tried at Fall Term, 1877, of WATAUGA Superior Court, before Cloud, J.
The prisoner was charged with the murder of Elisha Trivett, and the statement of the case sent to this Court is substantially as follows:
Eveline Trivett, wife of deceased, testified, that on Sunday the 24th of June, 1877, her husband started from home saying he was going to one Tice Harman's to sell his cattle. She and her children walked with him a part of the way. The road from the deceased to said Harman's leads in about 100 yards of the prisoner's house. Two paths lead from the prisoner's house to this road,-- one in the direction of said Harman's, and the other in the direction of the deceased. The body of deceased was found about 20 steps from the point where the path entered the road towards Tice Harman's. Shortly after deceased left, she heard the prisoner's wife (her sister-in-law) calling some one, and screaming, and then it was she heard the crack of a rifle. She went down the road soon afterwards, about 300 yards, and found the body of her husband, lying on his back, with hat over his eyes, and a bullet hole in his breast. His left hand was cut in several places. His pocket knife was open in his right hand. There were some logs and bushes by the side of the road, behind which were signs of tracks &c. The prisoner had threatened to kill deceased if he did not keep away from his house during his absence. It was also in evidence that about 12 o'clock the prisoner came running to the house of Frank Triplett and stated that Elisha Trivett was lying dead in the road opposite his house, and that he did not know who killed him. There was much circumstantial evidence tending to show that the prisoner shot the deceased from behind the logs &c.
Benjamin Greer, a Justice of the Peace, testified that he issued a warrant for the arrest of the prisoner in order that an examination of the circumstances attending the alleged homicide might be had; about a week thereafter and in consequence of a message received from one Farthing, he went to the house of the latter, where he found the prisoner, and said to him, “I suppose you admit that you killed Trivett.” The prisoner replied, “Yes I do.” The prisoner's counsel objected to this question and answer. Objection overruled.
The State then introduced Farthing who testified that the prisoner came to his house and said he had killed Trivett in his (prisoner's) house, and said further; “I came up and looked through a crack of the house, saw Trivett with his arm around my wife's neck in the house; saw enough to satisfy me; nobody knows what I had to bear; I ran around to the door, I hardly know how I got there; I would not have shot him if he had not come at me with a knife.” This witness further testified that the above confession was voluntary. The prisoner then offered to put in evidence his confessions made to one Church the day after the homicide, and other confessions made to the Justice who committed him to jail, to show that he had made substantially the same statement as was testified to by the witness, Farthing; and also offered to prove that a general state of adultery existed for several years, and up to the time of the homicide, between his wife and the deceased, but both were excluded upon objection by the State.
The prisoner's counsel in his argument to the jury asked His Honor to charge; (1) “That if Harman caught Trivett in his house engaged in adultery with his wife and on that account immediately killed him, it would be manslaughter; (2) That if he caught Trivett in his house with his arms around Mrs. Harman, and immediately slew him by reason of the furor brevis caused by the suspicion of adultery, and if the suspicion was reasonable, of which the jury were to judge, it would be manslaughter.” These instructions were given.”
The counsel then...
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