State v. Jones
| Decision Date | 24 May 1939 |
| Docket Number | No. 650.,650. |
| Citation | 2 S.E.2d. 867,215 N.C. 660 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE. v. JONES. |
Appeal from Superior Court, Hoke County; J. J. Burney, Judge.
Cleveland Jones was convicted of arson, and he appeals.
Reversed.
H. W. B. Whitley, of Raeford, for appellant.
Harry McMullan, Atty. Gen, and T. W. Bruton and R. H. Wettach, Asst. Attys. Gen, for the State.
This is an appeal from a judgment of death upon conviction of arson.
When the State had produced its evidence and rested its case the defendant moved to dismiss the action and for judgment of nonsuit and upon the refusal of his motion preserved exception, and after all the evidence in the case was concluded the defendant moved again for judgment of nonsuit and preserved exception to the refusal to grant his motion. C.S. § 4643.
The evidence produced at the trial was sufficient to prove that during the night of November 9 or early morning of November 10, 1938, the dwelling house of one Quincy Smith, while occupied by him and his wife and children and a brother, caught fire and was burned to the ground; that Smith and his family and brother went to bed about 10 o'clock, P. M, that there was a hard rain about 10:30 o'clock P. M, that between the hours of 2 and 3 o'clock, A. M, Smith was awakened and found that his house was on fire, and that by quick action and "hollering and whooping" he got his family "roused up" and "got them out"; that when Smith discovered the fire "the west side of the kitchen was burnt plumb down"; that in the early morning of November 10, when Quincy Smith went to feed his stock he observed fresh human tracks, made since the rain of the night before, near his barn and on a path leading from where the defendant was living to Smith's house; that it was subsequently demonstrated that these trackswere made by the defendant; and that some bad feeling existed between the defendant and Smith.
There was sufficient evidence to be submitted to the jury upon the issue of the defendant's being at the house on the night it was burned, and also of a motive for the defendant to set fire to the house; but even if it be conceded that the evidence established that the defendant had an opportunity to commit the crime and had a motive to commit the crime, in the absence of any evidence that the fire was of an incendiary origin, or even if it be further conceded that the fire was of incendiary origin, there is no evidence that this defendant set fire to the house. No one saw the defendant at the house at the time it was set fire, if it was set fire.
As was said by Merrimon, C.J, in State v. Goodson, 107 N.C. 798, 12 S.E. 329: ...
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