State v. Hart
| Decision Date | 19 February 1895 |
| Citation | 20 S.E. 1014,116 N.C. 976 |
| Parties | STATE v. HART. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from superior court, Craven county; Brown, Judge.
E. S Hart was convicted of arson and appeals. Affirmed.
Indictment for burning a barn, tried before Brown, J., and a jury, at fall term, 1894, of Craven superior court.
An indictment which contains all that is necessary, though inartistically drawn and liable to the criticism of duplicity, is sufficient on a motion in arrest of judgment.
The following testimony was offered for the state: Mrs. Mary D Dewey testified that about 12 o'clock on the night of February 17, 1894, or a little thereafter, a building upon her premises was destroyed by fire. The building was used as a barn, for the storage of corn and feed and other produce and there were also stables in it for horses. Witness further testified that she had been sitting up that night, and was awake when the alarm of fire was given; that she and F. C Small, her tenant, and George Tisdale and his wife, went at once to the fire, and that neighbors came soon after, and joined them in extinguishing it; that she examined the tracks of one person, and recognized them as the tracks of the defendant; that the defendant had been her tenant, and they had some disagreement about a corn sheller. Cross-examined The witness could not give any reason for saying the only tracks found where the fire originated were the defendant's tracks, except that his track was peculiar, and she knew it and recognized it. That there had been no other disagreement between her and the defendant, except about the corn sheller, and she supposed they had parted as friends. Elizabeth Tisdale testified: That she was present at the fire, and examined certain tracks in the rear of the stables where it was supposed the fire originated. They looked like the defendant's tracks. That she recognized them because more than two years before, while Mrs. Dewey was away from home, witness examined defendant's shoe tracks when he would be about his home. She further testified that in October, 1893, she heard the defendant say that the red cow would lick up the barn and stables of Mrs. Dewey. The building destroyed was a barn, and also had stables in it. Cross-examined: Witness did not see the defendant anywhere that night. A horse was in the building, and was taken out alive. Did not see the defendant at the fire. Johnson Ellison and George Bryan, two colored witnesses, testified: That on the night of the fire they saw the defendant on the road between the defendant's house and the Neuse road, leading to Mrs. Dewey's called the "Piney Neck Road." That it was a road leading into the road which led to Mrs. Dewey's, but running up into a thickly-settled neighborhood, called "Piney Neck." That they saw defendant on said road, not very far from Vanceboro, going from his house along said road. That he was about a mile from his own house, and about a half mile from the Neuse road, and on the Piney Neck road, going towards the Neuse road, which Neuse road ran by Mrs. Dewey's. That it was cloudy and raining that night. That the defendant did not speak. It was Saturday night, about 10 o'clock. The road was much traveled, especially on Saturday night, but they saw nobody but the defendant. F. C. Small testified: That he was at the fire. Examined the track, and it looked like the defendant's. Examined the track with a lantern, and on the following morning followed the track to the defendant's house. That his opinion is that the track at the stable and the barn was the same track which led to defendant's house. Upon cross-examination, he said he could not follow the tracks closely, but found them every hundred feet or so. There were one or two intervals, of several hundred feet, in which no track could be seen. He went to defendant's house the following morning. It had been raining during the night, but did not obliterate the tracks. Did not know the tracks were defendant's tracks until next morning. Defendant was arrested next morning, and his tracks made then were compared with the track the witness had followed the night before, and they were alike. There was a horse in the building. The state further offered testimony tending to prove that defendant had escaped from the officer without giving bond for his appearance at court, as required by the justice to do, and that some time afterwards he was brought back.
Guilford Maucher, for defendant, testified that the fire occurred at 11 o'clock Saturday night, February 17, 1894. He had been fishing, and had just lain down to sleep, and saw the light of the fire about 11 o'clock. Other witnesses testified that the fire occurred about that time, and that defendant was at Vanceboro at 10 o'clock, or a little after, on the night of the fire, and left Vanceboro about that time. The witness Lane said that defendant was at his store about that time, and the witness Willis saw the defendant as he was coming out of the town of Vanceboro about same time. A number of witnesses testified that defendant's house was about a mile from Vanceboro, and that Mrs. Dewey's place was about six miles from defendant's house, and that a man could not travel the distance between defendant's house and Mrs. Dewey's in the time defendant left Vanceboro, as testified to by defendant's witnesses. It was also in evidence that the road known as "Piney Neck Road" was much traveled, and that it ran into at thickly-settled neighborhood. It was a cloudy night, and had rained some between the time of the fire and next morning. Mary Hart defendant's daughter, testified that defendant came home about 11 o'clock on the night of the fire, and remained there all night. There were but two rooms in the house, communicating. She...
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