State v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 20 December 1940
• Docket Number: 649.
• Citation: 12 S.E.2d 278,218 N.C. 604
• Parties: STATE v. JOHNSON.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

12 S.E.2d 278

218 N.C. 604

STATE v. JOHNSON.

No. 649.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

December 20, 1940

This is a criminal action. The bill of indictment by the grand jury upon which defendant was tried was for burglary in the first degree. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of burglary in the first degree. Judgment of the court below was death by asphyxiation.

The evidence was to the effect: That Ruth Currie and her husband Fred L. Currie, were living in a house alone in Pembroke, N C., facing on the Lumberton-Charlotte Highway. Their nearest neighbors were Mrs. Cooke, who lived on the right and Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins, in front and across the highway, and the Littletons.

Mrs Ruth Currie testified, in part: "There is another lot near my home used as a place to keep secondhand automobiles that is on the next lot to my house, adjoins my house, starts on the front and goes right on back to the woods. That lot is kept lighted at night, either three or four lights out there. It was lighted on the night of July 28, I noticed it, the light was shining through my window." She knew the defendant, George A. Johnson. He was employed by Mrs. Cooke and was working for her two or three months. He mowed her (Mrs. Currie) lawn once a week. She had a little dog named Midgett, that usually barked at night and could be heard every time he barked. The dog got friendly with defendant, as he would feed the dog, "give him scraps out at night."

On the night of July 28th, she saw defendant at the Tyner Motor Company at 9 o'clock and had a conversation with him about mowing her lawn. He said "I will do it Monday morning." She saw him again about 11 o'clock when she was at a neighbor's house, Mrs. Robt L. Littleton who lived near her on the same side of the street. She was there listening to the radio. He and Willie Lee, who worked at the Tyner Motor Company, came by and stopped there and talked a few minutes and went toward her house. Mr. and Mrs. Littleton drove her home about twenty-five minutes to twelve. Her husband had gone to bed and she went to the living room and listened to the radio. She went to bed about twenty-five minutes to one o'clock. "When I turned off the light and went to my room Mr. Currie was asleep then; he and I slept in the same bed and in the same room. I immediately went to sleep after I went to bed. I woke up, when he touched me I woke up. I was on my back and on the left-hand side of the bed, Mr. Currie on the right-hand side, and I felt something crawling on my leg, and when I did, I did like that and touched his hand, and sat up, and looked down and he was on the floor with his head down like that, and I screamed and woke Mr. Currie--I call him Judge--and he rose up and said I was having a nightmare, and when I said there is a man in the room he got up and ran. I saw him. He went toward the hall and into the kitchen. I saw him and recognized him from the light shining right in the window. The garage lot lights were shining through my window, my bed was near the window, it was between two windows in the corner of the room, and he was on the floor by the bed. After I screamed and said there is a man in the room, Mr. Currie got up, the gun was over in a chest drawer where I kept his socks and everything, and he grabbed the gun and said it was the negro George that works for Mrs. Cooke; he ran out and went up stairs and came back and went to the front of the house, and Mr. Currie goes to the telephone, and I was right behind him, and he called the city police in Pembroke, couldn't get anybody to answer, then called Lumberton and got Sheriff Wade, and he told him he would be over there immediately, and in the meantime Sheriff Wade called Carl Maynor. My husband also called Mr. Littleton and Mrs. Littleton answered the telephone, and they came immediately to my house. I told them exactly what I told Mr. Currie. I told them he was touching me and I woke up, he was going up my leg like a bug crawling on me. It was a real hot night and I had turned the sheets down at the foot of the bed; my night clothes were not down when I went to bed, I pulled it to here (indicating about half way the thigh), but it was right along here when he touched me (indicating about the waistline). *** Several of the neighbors came and some officers. Mr. Currie and Mr. Purcell and Mr. Littleton all went around the house. I was not with them, but I went around the house. I observed that he pushed a hole in the screen with a stick, burnt at one end, and looked like he put his hand in it; the screen fastens with a hook, and you have to pull it up and pull it off to take it off, and it was set against the wall on the outside; the stick was right on the ground, it had a charred end to it. The screen in the window nearest to the bed was unhooked and pushed out; it was unhooked so all he would have to do was jump out of the window, had the round hook pushed open and the screen pushed out; that screen was closed when I went to bed; that screen in the kitchen window that we found removed was locked; the window was pulled up but the screen was locked. Our house was locked, the screen door was locked. This happened between 3 and 3:30 o'clock in the morning, it was dark. We had a garbage can, it sits at the corner of the back porch and we had it buried in a hole about 18 inches deep, maybe a little bit more, and he took the garbage pail and lifted it completely up. It was gone out of that hole, it was by the window where Mr. Currie sleeps, on the side of the bed Mr. Currie sleeps at the back window. The top was bent in where he stood up on it. The window at my head was unfastened after I went to bed and went to sleep. *** It was the screen to the window in the kitchen that had the hole in it; it was leaning against the wall of the house; the stick was laying down on the ground. *** I slept on the left side of the bed next to the window. The can was at the window next to Mr. Currie's side of the bed. When I observed the defendant he was there in the room right next to the bed kneeling down on his knees on the floor, and when I hollered he got up and ran. He ran right straight through the door. It was a moonlight night. There was missing from the home Mr. Currie's watch, knife, pocketbook, and he had some letters, had a lot of receipts in his pocketbook. He had his clothes in the chair that was next to the mantlepiece in our bedroom. *** The next time I saw the defendant, after seeing him in my bedroom, was right here in the courtroom. He is the man I saw in my bedroom; he is the man I saw working for Mrs. Cooke; the defendant is the man I saw feed my dog, the man that promised to cut my grass on Monday morning. Q. State whether or not this defendant here is the person you saw in your house there by your bed that night? Ans: Yes, sir." On cross-examination: "He didn't move until Mr. Currie answered me; I knocked his hand off of me when I sat up in bed and when Mr. Currie answered, he started running, he turned around just like this and ran out in the hall. *** The defendant was perfectly normal when I saw him. I asked him when he was going to mow the lawn. I heard him talking to Willie Lee, his condition seemed to be all right. He didn't talk to me like an intoxicated man. I saw him in my home around 3 or 3:30 o'clock. I didn't have occasion to verify that but it was around that time. I had been asleep something like an hour or two. As to any misgivings in my mind about the identity of this man I saw in my room, there are not many colored people in Pembroke, and the minute he stood up I recognized him. *** I am satisfied beyond even a shadow of a doubt that, notwithstanding the fact it was in the darkness, I am not mistaken; I wasn't mistaken the minute I woke up and saw him and there hasn't been a doubt in my mind from that night on. *** (Re-direct): I told Mrs. Littleton this defendant is the man who I saw in my room, I also told Mr. Wiggins, Sheriff Wade, Mr. Purcell, Mr. Crump, Shell Warrix, and all of them when they got there. Mr. Wade or Mr. Crump picked up some struck matches, I saw them pick them up at my window and at Mr. Currie's window, I don't know whether there was any at the window where he went out or not." She was corroborated by her husband, Fred L. Currie, who testified to other facts as to how the burglar got in and out of the house. He also testified: "I didn't miss the watch not until the Sheriff brought the watch up; that must have been 5:30 or 6 o'clock after he arrested the negro."

Bernice Robeson testified, in part: "When he (defendant) came back last time it was between 3 and 3:30 o'clock; it was after that I heard the scream and saw him running. (Cross-examination): Willie Lee and him were drinking a little bit that night, I think they were; I don't know that George was pretty drunk, he didn't act like it. *** I don't know whether he was drunk or sober, he didn't act to me like he was drunk when he was scratching on the screen; he didn't say what he came back there for, I didn't ask him. *** I saw him in the moonlight, the moon was shining that night. I didn't go back to sleep after he scratched on my window. It was about thirty minutes after that and I heard Mrs. Currie scream. When I heard Mrs. Currie scream I saw him running from over there, he run between the garage and my house."

She was corroborated by Mrs. Robt. L. Littleton, who testified in part: "I saw her (Mrs. Currie) again after 3 o'clock after a 'phone message was received. I saw her at her home. In consequence of the 'phone call we went immediately, my husband and I, up to Fred Currie's home. My husband and I got up immediately after the 'phone call and went there, and when we drove up in the yard--I don't imagine it took us more than five or six minutes--Mrs. Currie...