State v. Harrison

• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BROWN, J.
• Citation: State v. Harrison, 145 N.C. 408, 59 S.E. 867 (N.C. 1907)
• Decision Date: 17 September 1907
• Parties: STATE v. HARRISON.

59 S.E. 867

145 N.C. 408

STATE v. HARRISON.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

September 17, 1907

Appeal from Superior Court, Pasquotank County; W. R. Allen, Judge.

Joshua Harrison was convicted of kidnapping Kenneth Beasley, a boy eight years old, and appeals. Affirmed.

A witness may be allowed to use a map to explain his testimony the map not being admitted in evidence.

Aycock & Daniels, Aydlett & Ehringhaus, and I. M. Meekins, for appellant.

Assistant Attorney General Clement, H. S. Ward, and W. M. Bond, for the State.

BROWN J.

The indictment was returned in Currituck county, where the offense is charged to have been committed. The court granted the defendant's motion to remove the case for trial to another county. The counsel for defendant made no objection to any county except Camden. The court then stated that counsel for the state could name any county in the district except Camden. Pasquotank county was then named by counsel for the state and adopted by the court. No objection was made by counsel for defendant, and no exception taken at the time. As the defendant took no exception, he acquiesced in the action of the court, and cannot now be heard to complain. Had the defendant objected at the time, his honor doubtless would have corrected the error and selected the county himself. The practice of allowing either party to select the county when a cause is removed for trial is not to be commended, and, if excepted to at the time, might possibly be regarded as reversible error, necessitating a new trial. The law imposes upon the court the duty of selecting the county, and this duty cannot be delegated to others.

There are eight exceptions in the record to the rulings of the court upon evidence offered, all of which we have examined with that care which the importance of this case demands. We find no error pointed out by the exceptions of such a character as would justify us in awarding a new trial, and all of the exceptions need not be commented upon in this opinion.

The witness Beasley was permitted to take up a map and show the location of his residence. The court permitted the witness to use the map to explain his evidence. The defendant's exception thereto cannot be sustained. The map was not admitted in evidence; but it was competent for the purpose of enabling the witness to explain his testimony and enable the jury to understand it. Diagrams, plats, and the like are of frequent use for this purpose in the trial of causes, and for such purpose the use of the map was admissible. Dobson v Whisenhant, 101 N.C. 645, 8 S.E. 126; Riddle v Germantown, 117 N.C. 387, 23 S.E. 332; State v. Whiteacre, 98 N.C. 753, 3 S.E. 488; State v. Wilcox, 132 N.C. 1135, 44 S.E. 625.

It was in evidence that defendant was a neighbor of the boy's parents, and defendant excepts because a witness was permitted to state that defendant took no part in the general search instituted by the neighborhood, in which several hundred persons participated. We see no objection to this, and his honor's ruling is supported by State v. Wilcox, 132 N.C. 1128, 44 S.E. 625. It is only a very slight circumstance, it is true; but facts, which are but slight evidence, standing alone, should be admitted when the state relies upon circumstantial evidence, if they, with the other facts proved, bear upon the offense charged. State v. Rhodes, 111 N.C. 647, 15 S.E. 1038.

Exceptions 4, 5, 6, and 7 relate to the introduction of evidence tending to prove that the boy could not have been lost in the sound, not far from his residence; that "many people frequent the sound"; that "it is a harbor for boats"; that "there are usually plenty of fishermen and gunners on the sound, and fishermen usually fish near the wharf." The state was endeavoring to prove by circumstances that the boy had been carried away. To that end evidence was offered that the woods for miles around had been scoured in vain by hundreds of searchers. The state then undertook to demonstrate the great improbability that the boy was lost in the nearby water. We see no objection to this proof. Its value was for the jury. It was a circumstance, slight though it may be, tending, with other evidence, to establish the contention that the boy had not been lost in the woods or drowned along the shore of the sound. It was incumbent upon the state to establish the fact that the boy had been actually carried away, as well as to prove that the defendant did it. In this connection the language of Mr. Justice Connor in State v. Wilcox, 132 N.C. 1143, 44 S.E. 633, is very pertinent; "In a criminal case, were all the circumstances of time, place, motive, means, opportunity, and conduct concur in pointing out the accused as the perpetrator of an act of violence, the force of such circumstantial evidence is materially strengthened by the total absence of any trace or vestige of any other agent."

Upon the examination of S. M. Beasley, a state's witness, and the father of Kenneth Beasley, the following conversation with defendant was received in evidence on behalf of the state without objection: "Harrison asked me if I had seen the article in the News and Observer, and what I thought of it. I said: 'I don't know what to think of it.' He said: 'Don't you think it is a batch of lies?' I said: 'I don't know whether it is or not.' Then he asked me if I would not write an article to the News and Observer and criticise this article referred to, as untrue. I told him I was very particular as to what I said, especially what I wrote for the public, as I wanted to get my boy back if possible. He said: 'It is perfectly absurd to entertain the kidnapping idea.' I said: 'It does not seem to me absurd to entertain any idea, in view of the fact that we have had so diligent a search for two weeks and have failed to find any trace of him whatever.' He said: 'If your son was kidnapped, some of your neighbors did it.' I said: 'I don't know who did it, but I would like to get him back if possible, and I would not write anything to the News and Observer.' Then he drove on. I presume he was referring to the article in the News and Observer which suspected him as being the party who took the child. Such an article was published some time, I think, during the week before this conversation. I did not go back to Raleigh. I did not publish the article, and do not know who did." Upon cross-examination by defendant's counsel the witness was handed a newspaper containing an article headed "Kidnapped," and requested to say if it was the article referred to. Witness answered that it was; and defendant's counsel then asked, "Did the paper next day contradict it?" The state objected to the last question, and it was excluded. We see no error in this ruling. The evidence in chief to which this was intended as a response was not only not objected to by defendant, but consisted almost entirely of the declarations of the defendant in a conversation with Beasley. The subject of the newspaper article was introduced during that conversation by the defendant himself, and his statements are competent evidence against him. The state did not offer the declarations of the News and Observer, but the declarations of the defendant. These were competent evidence, and it was plainly incompetent to undertake to reply to them by the subsequent declarations of the newspaper. Whatever value the general public may or may not set upon the statements of the News and Observer, we know of no law as yet which constitutes them evidence of a fact on the trial of an indictment in a court of justice.

The defendant took several exceptions to the conduct of the argument upon the part of counsel for the state. During the argument the solicitor asserted that the defendant was a bad man, as shown by the evidence, and said the indictment was found in Currituck county and he was being tried in Pasquotank. The court, without objection by defendant, stopped him, and stated that it was not proper to comment on the removal of the cause, and that the jury could not consider it. The solicitor made no further reference to the removal. In view of the very prompt action of the court in correcting the error of the solicitor, we see no ground for complaint so far as the court is concerned. The same can be said to the exception to comments of counsel that defendant failed to testify. The court corrected this error of counsel in a very effective and impressive manner. We undertake to correct the errors of the judge, and not those committed by attorneys. Their errors are to be corrected by the trial judge, and when he fails in his duty it becomes a ground of exception.

The other exceptions to the conduct of the argument must likewise be...