State v. Haynes

• Decision Date: 30 June 1874
• Citation: 71 N.C. 79
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. JOHN HAYNES.

71 N.C. 79

STATE

v.JOHN HAYNES.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

June Term, 1874.

It is the province of the prosecuting officer to determine who shall be examined as witnesses on the part of the State, and at what time in the course of the trial he will rest his case. The presiding Judge may permit testimony to be introduced at any stage of the trial, and this Court will not interfere with the exercise of that discretion, unless in a clear case of abuse.

The declarations of one who is a competent witness is inadmissible, though offered for the purpose of connecting the witness with crime for which the prisoner is being tried. Proving his acts, tending to establish his guilt, is as far as the rules of practice will permit.

When the prisoner broke and entered the dwelling of the prosecutrix at about 10 o'clock at night, after the inmates had retired, and when discovered fled: Held, there was some evidence that he entered the same with intent to steal, & c.

( State v. Bush, 12 Ired. 382; State v. Martin, 2 Ired. 101; State v. Stewart, 9 Ired. 342; State v. Perry, Busb. 330; State v. White, 68 N. C. Rep. 158, cited and approved.)

INDICTMENT, burglary, tried at the Spring Term, 1874, of the Superior Court of DAVIE county, before his Honor, Judge Cloud.

The prisoner was charged with burglariously entering the house of the prosecutrix, Amanda Ellis, in one count, with intent to steal the “goods and chattels,” and in a second count, a “pocket book,” of the property of the said Amanda Ellis. To both of these counts prisoner pleaded “not guilty.”

The prosecutrix stated that she lived with her daughter in a house with two rooms below with a passway between them, and one room above, to which stairs ran up from the passage. In the upper room was a sash window, fastened with a cotton string and opening upon a porch, the roof of which was nearly on a level with the window. She and her daughter went to bed in the west room, when about 10 o'clock she was awakened by some one running his hand over her face and throwing off her bed clothes. She screamed and called her daughter, and ran out of the room into the east room, in which was a fire place, and where she and daughter had undressed, placing their clothes on a chair. She went to the door on the north side of the house, opened it, got a fat piece of pine and commenced kindling a fire. Whilst so doing some one went to the door on the south side of the house from the passage and tried to get out; failing in this the person went to the north door, the one she had opened. She did not see him or know who he was. The clothes she had left on the chair were scattered on the floor; that in the pocket of her outside dress she had a pocket book, blue on the outside and red within, containing two five dollar bills, one two dollar bill, one one dollar bill, fifty cents fractional currency and two twenty-five cent bills. This pocket book fitted tight in her pocket. She went to the house of a neighbor, some three hundred yards from her house, and upon her return she missed the book and money. This witness further stated that she saw a rail leaning up against the roof of the porch, and that the upper window was opened.

Emma Ellis testified that she was awakened by the screams of her mother and started to the room where she had left her clothes. In the passage some one caught her by the shoulders and held her until her mother kindled a light; that he then ran to the south door and tried to open it; failing, he walked across the room to the door her mother had opened and stood there four or five minutes with his hands in his pockets. She stated that she saw him distinctly, knew it was a negro, and that the prisoner was the person; that she knew him before and was certain that it was him.

The Solicitor here rested the case for the State. For the prisoner it was insisted that the State should be required to disclose the whole of the evidence in support of the indictment, and not be permitted to call any other witness except in reply to the testimony to be introduced for the prisoner. His Honor declined to interfere, when the prisoner introduced two witnesses, who swore that on the night of the burglary the prisoner went to bed between 8 and 9 o'clock up stairs over a room in which they slept; that he left his shoes by the fire; that they went to sleep about 9 o'clock and that about 2 o'clock two of the brothers of the prosecutrix called for John; that he was then up stairs where he went to bed and that his shoes were by the fire where he left them when he retired. That there was no way for the prisoner to have gone out of the house, except out of the window of his room, without coming down into the room where they were sleeping; that the door of the house was hard to open and made a noise whenever it was opened, and that they did not think that he could have got out without their knowing it. These witnesses were proven to be of good character.

The prisoner then offered to prove that about 9 o'clock one Miles Haynes called at the house of a person living about one and a half miles from the prosecutrix and proposed to work for two days for a quart of liquor; that he then went to another house, one-half mile from the prosecutrix, and asked if the house he had just passed was not the house of a widow woman, and what sort of a woman she was; at the same time he enquired the way to the house of two women of ill-fame, and that when he left he went in the direction of the prosecutrix. The Court refused to let in the declarations of the said Miles, but said the prisoner might prove his acts.

The prisoner then proposed to prove that between 11 and 12 o'clock the same night, the said Miles Haynes called at the house of one James Wyatt, and wanted him to get some liquor for him, and offered him fifty cents to pay for it. The Court...