State v. Keen

• Decision Date: 31 October 1886
• Citation: State v. Keen, 95 N.C. 646 (N.C. 1886)
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. W. H. KEEN.

95 N.C. 646

STATE

v.W. H. KEEN.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

October Term, 1886.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

INDICTMENT, tried before Gudger, Judge, at Spring Term, 1885, of HERTFORD Superior Court.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the Court.

Attorney-General, for the State .

No counsel for the defendant.

ASHE, J.

The defendant and one Butler were charged with the offence of burning a gin-honse,?? and both were convicted. On motion of the defendants a new trial was awarded to Butler, but denied to the defendant Keen, who appealed to this Court.

The charge in the indictment was that the defendants, in Hertford county, on the 1st day of March, A. D. 1885, “a certain gin-house, the property of John F. Newsom, unlawfully, maliciously, wilfully and feloniously, did set fire to and burn.”

The only exception taken by the defendant, as disclosed by the record and bill of exceptions, is to the charge of the Judge, which was as follows, to-wit: “If you are satisfied that these defendants, or either of them, burnt the gin-house named in the bill of indictment, then you shall find them guilty--that is, if you are satisfied that only one of them burnt the gin-house, as is alleged in the bill of indictment, you will return a verdict of guilty as to him, and not guilty as to the other defendant. But, before you can find either of them guilty, you must be satisfied from the evidence, of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

We are unable to discover any error in the charge of the Court. If the Court, after charging, “if you are satisfied that these defendants, or either of them, burnt the gin-house named in the bill of indictment, then you shall find them guilty,” had stopped there, the objection to the charge might have been sustained, but the Court relieved the charge of the objection by proceeding to qualify and explain what it had said, by adding: “that is, if you are satisfied that only one of them burnt the gin-house, as is alleged in the bill of indictment, you will return a verdict of guilty as to him, and not guilty as to the other defendant.” With this qualification, the jury could not have been misled, or left in any confusion as to the import of the charge.

The charge is certainly not very happily expressed, but we think the jury could not have had any doubt that the meaning of the charge was, that if both the defendants burned the gin house, as alleged in the indictment, then they are both guilty, but if only one burned it, he only should be...