State v. Hause
| Citation | 71 N.C. 518 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina |
| Decision Date | 30 June 1874 |
| Parties | STATE v. HENRY HAUSE. |
If a defendant enter upon land, or travel an open way, (the trespass charged,) under a bona fide claim of right, he is not criminally guilty of a trespass on land under the statute.
And he is not guilty, if at the time it was done, he believed he had the right to enter, or travel on or over the road, because he, and the former owners of the land had done so for sixteen or seventeen years.
( State v. Allen, 68 N. C. Rep. 281; State v. Whitehurst, 70 N. C. Rep. 85.)
INDICTMENT, for a trespass on land, tried before Logan, J., at Spring Term, 1875, of LINCOLN Superior Court.
The land on which the trespass was alleged to have been committed, is an acute angle between the defendant's land and a public road which runs by his place. From defendant's land to the public road, runs a road, which crosses this land at the largest opening of the angle, a distance of about forty yards.
This road was cut fifteen or sixteen years ago, the prosecutor not objecting, and has been used by the defendant and prior owners of defendant's land without any objection from the prosecutor, until defendant was notified a short time before the finding of this indictment not to come on or trespass on any lands of the prosecutor, in the said county of Lincoln. There was another road from defendant's land to the public road, used as a mill road, crossing the angle of land above alluded to at its apex, or where the public road and defendant's land joined. The title to the land over which this road ran is in dispute between the prosecutor and the defendant. This road had been cut fifteen or sixteen years, and used by defendant and the prior owners of his land without objection, until the notice before mentioned.
It was in evidence, that the former owners and occupants of the defendant's land and himself had been crossing this angle of the land at different points in getting to the public road for more than thirty years, and that through this angle of land was the only way they could get to the public road without great inconvenience.
It was also in evidence, that after the defendant had been notified not to trespass on the land of the prosecutor, he continued to travel these roads, and where a tree had been felled across the road near the apex of the angle, he had cut the top of the tree off to make a road around the felled tree.
The defendant's counsel asked the Court to instruct the jury that it was not necessary for the defendant to have the legal right to travel the roads above described, but that if he believed he had the right because he and the former occupants of his land had been using the road fifteen or sixteen years, and that former owners had been crossing this land for thirty years, without any objection on the part of the prosecutor, that if he believed this long usage gave him a license to travel these roads, notwithstanding he might be mistaken, he would not be guilty.
His Honor charged the jury, that if the defendant had used the road for thirty years, it gave him a license to travel over it, but that fifteen or sixteen years would not. That the defendant had reasonable ground to believe that the land was his, and did so believe, he had a right to cut timber on the land; otherwise, he did not. Defendant again excepted.
There was a verdict of guilty. Motion in arrest of judgment; motion overruled. Judgment and appeal by the defendant.
No counsel in this Court for defendant .
Attorney General Hargrove, for the State .
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State v. Baker
......Glenn,. supra; State v. [231 N.C. 141] Fisher, 109. N.C. 817, 13 S.E. 878; State v. Crawley, 103 N.C. 353, 9 S.E. 409; State v. Lawson, 101 N.C. 717, 7. S.E. 905, 9 Am.St.Rep. 42; State v. Winslow, 95 N.C. 649; State v. Bryson, 81 N.C. 595; State v. Crosset, 81 N.C. 579; State v. Hause, 71 N.C. 518; State v. Whitehurst, 70 N.C. 85; State v. Ellen, 68 N.C. 281; State v. Hanks, 66 N.C. 612. . . The. assignments of error of the defendant based upon the refusal. of the trial court to dismiss the prosecutions for trespass. upon compulsory nonsuits under G.S. ......
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State v. Baker, 434.
...7 S.E. 905, 9 Am.St.Rep. 42; State v. Winslow, 95 N.C. 649; State v. Bryson, 81 N.C. 595; State v. Crosset, 81 N.C. 579; State v. Hause, 71 N.C. 518; State v. Whitehurst, 70 N.C. 85; State v. Ellen, 68 N.C. 281; State v. Hanks, 66 N.C. 612. The assignments of error of the defendant based up......
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State v. Cooke
...or threats. Good faith in making the entry is a defense. State v. Wells, 142 N.C. 590, 55 S.E. 210; State v. Crosset, 81 N.C. 579; State v. Hause, 71 N.C. 518; State v. Hanks, 66 N.C. 612. But possession is an essential element of the crime. If the State fails to establish that prosecutor h......
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State v. Faggart
...the statute, though within its words. State v. Hanks, 66 N.C. 613; State v. Roseman, 66 N. C. 634; State v. Ellen, 68 N. C. 281; State v. Hause, 71 N. C. 518; State v. Crosset, 81 N. O. 579. In those cases we approved what was held in Dotson v. State, 6 Cold. (Tenn.) 545, in regard to a sta......