State v. Jackson
| Decision Date | 31 January 1880 |
| Parties | STATE v. JOHN JACKSON and others. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
INDICTMENT for Conspiracy, tried at Fall Term, 1879, of WAKE Superior Court, before Avery, J.
The defendants, John Jackson, Anthony Cotten, Chaney Utley and Grace Burt, are charged with conspiring to impute to one Louisa Pierce the crime of infanticide, and to cause her to be arrested, prosecuted and punished therefor. The indictment was found at June term, 1879, to which the defendants had been bound over, or were confined in prison from inability to give bail, and the cause without further action on it was continued. When the trial came on at August term following, the defendant, John Jackson, proposed to plead in abatement for misnomer, but was refused permission to do so, His Honor being of opinion that the plea should have been put in at the preceding term. Thereupon the defendants pleaded not guilty, and upon the issues were convicted. The other exceptions disclosed in the record are as follows:
1. The husband of Louisa Pierce, W. E. Pierce, was permitted to prove that his wife, in the presence of the defendant, Chaney Utley, said she had been delivered of still-born twins, and their bodies were then under the bed.
2. The witness, after objection from said Chaney, testified to a statement of Jackson that he had been told by his co-defendant, Cotten, of the reported murder.
3. The witness was allowed to show a search on the premises of Jackson and the finding on the hearth and in the fireplace the bones and teeth of some small animal.
4. Louisa Pierce testified to a declaration of the defendant, Grace Burt, when Cotten and Chaney were in the yard at the time looking towards them--“It is not Mr. Jackson. keep your eye on these hawks in the yard.”
5. While the testimony was given in, tending to implicate some of the defendants, it was objected by their counsel that no further testimony should be received until the existence of the conspiracy was proved, or sufficient evidence thereof given to be submitted to the jury. In answer to this the solicitor stated that he expected to prove the guilt of the several defendants by their acts and declarations.
No objection was made to the charge of the court and no instructions asked. Verdict of guilty. Judgment that defendant Jackson be imprisoned in the State's prison for ten years, Utley for eight years, and Cotten for five years. Appeal by defendants. Judgment suspended as to defendant Grace Burt.
Attorney General, and R. G. Lewis, for the State .
Messrs. Bledsoe & Bledsoe and W. P. Batchelor, for defendants .
We must assume from this acquiescence, and in the absence of any complaint, that when the testimony was all in and it was left to the jury to pass upon the proof of the offence and the complicity of the defendants in committing it, the evidence was reasonably sufficient to establish their guilt and warrant their conviction. Thus considered, the point presented in all the exceptions, except the third, and directly in the last, is, that the combination and common design imputed to the defendants should be first shown, and until this is done, it is irregular and inadmissible to enquire into the particular criminal conduct of the parties accused.
Although the usual and more orderly proceeding in the development of a conspiracy is to establish the fact of its existence, and then the connection of the defendants with it, yet the conduct of the trial and the order in which the testimony shall be introduced, must rest largely in the sound discretion of the presiding judge, and if at the close of the evidence, every constituent of the offence charged is proved, the verdict resting thereon will not be disturbed. In our opinion the defendants have no just grounds of complaint on account of this action of the court.
It is a rule well established that all who engage in a conspiracy, as well as those who participate after it is formed, as those with whom it originates, are equally liable, and the acts and declarations of each in furtherance of the common illegal design are admissible against all. State v. Dean, 13 Ired., 63; State v. Earwood, 75 N. C., 210.
The doctrine is thus lucidly stated by an eminent author: “Every one who does enter into a common purpose or design” (referring to a conspiracy) ...
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State v. Surles
...statute now codified as G.S. § 14-3 in respect to conspiracies is to be found in these cases or in previous decisions, such as State v. Jackson, 82 N.C. 565, and State v. Turner, 119 N.C. 841, 25 S.E. 810, holding either explicitly or implicitly that a conspiracy is a misdemeanor even in th......
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State v. Small
...in furtherance of such common design." 1 Greenleaf on Evidence § 111 (1842). This principle was quoted verbatim in State v. Jackson, supra, 82 N.C. 565, 568 (1876), a conspiracy case in which the coconspirator rule was invoked to sustain the admission against defendant of evidence of the ac......
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State v. Surles
...statute now codified as G.S. s 14-3 in respect to conspiracies is to be found in these cases or in previous decisions, such as State v. Jackson, 82 N.C. 565, and State Turner, 119 N.C. 841, 25 S.E. 810, holding either explicitly or implicitly that a conspiracy is a misdemeanor even in those......
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State v. Anderson
... ... purpose or design * * * is equally deemed in law a party to ... every act which had before been done by the others, and a ... party to every act which may afterwards be done by any of the ... others, in furtherance of such common design." State ... v. Jackson, 82 N.C. 565 ... Direct ... proof of the charge is not essential, for such is rarely ... obtainable. It may be, and generally is, established by a ... number of indefinite acts, each of which, standing alone, ... might have little weight, but, taken collectively, they point ... ...