State v. Hastings
| Decision Date | 28 February 1882 |
| Citation | 86 N.C. 596 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. W. C. HASTINGS. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
INDICTMENT for forgery tried at Fall Term, 1881, of MECKLENBURG Superior Court, before Avery, J.
Verdict of guilty, judgment, appeal by defendant.
Attorney General, for the State .
Mr. R. D. Graham, for defendant .
The defendant is charged, and upon trial was convicted of forging a bond for the payment of money to himself, and purporting to be executed by Talor Nance and A. J. Derr, as described in the indictment. Before the jury were empanelled the defendant's counsel moved to quash the bill, basing the motion upon the facts contained in an affidavit and which the court finds to be true, that a bill for the same offence had been found at a former term, and having become mutilated, a second bill had been prepared and conveyed to the door of the grand jury room and handed to the foreman by an attorney employed to aid in the prosecution, and returned a true bill; and that, upon objection for this irregularity, a third bill was sent upon which the solicitor now proposed to put the defendant on trial. The attorney who handed the second bill to the foreman did not appear before the grand jury, nor did he say anything about the indictment calculated to influence the action of the jurors in considering and passing upon the charge.
The motion was properly denied, for the former bills in connection with the facts stated, constitute no legal impediment to the putting the defendant on trial upon the last and more perfect bill, at the election of the solicitor. This is the recognized practice, and is convenient and necessary in the administration of the criminal law for the removal of all grounds of exception to the form of the bills previously sent, or for any irregularity in the manner of acting upon them. State v. Dixon, 78 N. C., 558.
The second exception is to the admission of evidence. Talor Nance, the first named obligor on the bond, testified that he did not sign it, but that he had before executed a note to the defendant with A. J. Derr as surety, for the same sum and due at thirty days from the date; that soon after its execution and before maturity, the defendant proposed to witness to sell him the note for twenty dollars, saying he was hard up for money; that accepting the offer and while on their way to witness' house to carry the agreement into effect, the defendant was arrested, and thereupon the matter was deferred to the next week, defendant saying he would not need the money sooner, and that after his return from Charlotte he would then either himself bring or send the note to witness.
The state was then, after objection made and overruled, allowed to prove by the witness that the forged instrument was delivered to him the week after by the defendant's father.
In like manner, after objection of defendant, the same witness was permitted to testify that a...
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Bartley v. State
...575; Eldridge v. State, 27 Fla. 162, 9 So. 448; State v. Security Bank, 2 S.D. 538, 51 N.W. 337; State v. Curtis, 29 Kan. 384; State v. Hastings, 86 N.C. 596; State v. Lambert, 9 Nev. 321; Bailey State, 11 Tex. Ct. App. 140.) Counsel for the accused insist the doctrine that a former indictm......
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Bartley v. State
...E. 575;Eldridge v. State (Fla.) 9 South. 448;State v. Security Bank of Clark (S. D.) 51 N. W. 337;State v. Curtis, 29 Kan. 386;State v. Hastings, 86 N. C. 596;State v. Lambert, 9 Nev. 321;Bailey v. State, 11 Tex. App. 140. Counsel for the accused insist that the doctrine that a former indic......
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State v. Harden
...are all receivable in evidence as circumstances connected with, and throwing light upon, the question of imputed guilt." See State v. Hastings, 86 N.C. 596. We of the opinion that the defendants were properly tried, and that the evidence fully sustains the verdict and judgment. The right of......
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Smith v. State
...each as a count of the same bill,' and refuse to require the solicitor to elect till the close of the evidence for the state. State v. Hastings, 86 N. C. 596; State v. Dixon, 78 N. C. 558; State v. Watts, 82 N. C. 656; State v. Haney, supra; and State v. Reel, "In State v. McNeill, 93 N. C.......