State v. Jones
| Decision Date | 31 October 1886 |
| Citation | 59 Am.Rep. 282,95 N.C. 588 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. FRED JONES. |
The defendant was tried and convicted at July Term, 1886, of the Criminal Court of NEW HANOVER, before Meares, Judge, for an assault and battery, and from the judgment thereon pronounced against him, he appealed.
The defendant is charged, in the ordinary form of an indictment, with an assault and battery committed upon the person of Mary C. Jones, who, though not so designated, is his daughter, and was then sixteen years of age. Upon the trial, she testified that the defendant was a man of bad temper and frequently whipped her without any cause; that on one occasion he whipped her at the gate in front of his house, giving her about twenty-five blows with a switch, or small limb, about the size of one's thumb or forefinger, with such force as to raise whelks upon her back, and then going into the house, he soon returned and gave her five blows more with the same switch, choked her, and threw her violently to the ground, causing a dislocation of her thumb joint; that she had given him no offence; that she did not know for what she was beaten, nor did he give her any reason for it during the time. No permanent injury was inflicted upon her person. There was other corroborative testimony, and one witness saw her tongue hanging out of her mouth while being choked. The defendant and his wife, stepmother of the girl, swore that she was habitually disobedient, had several times stolen money, and was chastised at the time spoken of for stealing some cents from her father; that he never whipped her except for correction, and this he was often compelled to do for that purpose, and had never administered punishment under the impulse of high temper or from malice.
The defendant's counsel requested an instruction that in order to a conviction, it was incumbent on the State to show that some permanent injury had been inflicted.
This was refused, and the jury was charged that “a parent had the right to inflict punishment on his child for the purpose of correction, but the punishment must not be ‘excessive and cruel,’ nor must it be ‘to gratify malicious motives;’ that if the whipping was such as described by the daughter, there would arise a question as to the severity and extent of the punishment; that if the jury were convinced that it was cruel and excessive, the defendant would be guilty; that it was not necessary that it should result in a permanent injury to her, and if it was excessive and cruel it would be sufficient to make the defendant guilty.”
The Attorney General, for the State .
Mr. John D. Bellamy for defendant .
SMITH, C. J. (after stating the case).
It will be observed that the test of the defendant's criminal liability is the infliction of a punishment “ cruel and excessive,” and thus it is left to the jury without the aid of any rule of law for their guidance to determine.
It is quite obvious that this would subject every exercise of parental authority in the correction and discipline of children--in other words, domestic government--to the supervision and control of jurors, who might, in a given case, deem the punishment disproportionate to the offence, and unreasonable and excessive. It seems to us, that such a rule would tend, if not to subvert family government, greatly to impair its efficiency, and remove restraints upon the conduct of children. If, whenever parental authority is used in chastising them, it could be a subject of judicial inquiry whether the punishment was cruel and excessive--that is, beyond the demerits of the disobedience or misconduct, and the father himself exposed to a criminal prosecution at the instance of the child, in defending himself from which he would be compelled to lift the curtain from the scenes of home life, and exhibit a long series of acts of insubordination, disobedience and ill-doing-- it would open the door to a flood of irreparable evils far transcending that to be remedied by a public prosecution....
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Commonwealth v. Dorvil
...from other jurisdictions granted wide leeway to parental authority, so long as parents did not act with “malice.” See, e.g., State v. Jones, 95 N.C. 588, 592 (1886) (“The test, then, of criminal responsibility is the infliction of permanent injury by means of the administered punishment, or......
-
Tr.S Of Rex Hosp. v. Crow
...of evidence and the charge of the court are sustained by the following authorities: State v. Whitfield, 92 N. C. 831; State v. Jones, 95 N. C. 588, 59 Am. Rep. 282; State v. Dickerson, 98 N. C. 70S, 3 S. E. 687; State v. Horn, 116 N. C. 1037, 21 S. E. 694; State v. Wilcox, 118 N. C. 1131, 2......
-
Carpenter v. Commonwealth
...a permanent injury, or that the punishment proceeded from malice and not in the exercise of corrective authority. State v. Jones, 95 N.C. 588, 59 Am.Rep. 282; Dean v. State, 89 Ala. 46, 8 So. 38; People v. Green, 155 Mich. 524, 119 N.W. 1087, 21 L.R.A., N.S., 216. However, the great prepond......
-
State v. Thornton
...v. Black, 60 N. C. 263, 86 Am. Dec. 436; State v. Rhodes, 61 N. C. 453, 98 Am. Dec. 78; State v. Alford, 68 N. C. 322; State v. Jones, 95 N. C. 588, 59 Am. Rep. 282; State v. Long, 117 N. C. 791, 23 S. E. 431; Drum v. Miller, 135 N. C. 204, 47 S. E. 421. When tested by the principle thus es......