State v. Knight

• Decision Date: 05 March 1958
• Docket Number: No. 145,145
• Citation: 247 N.C. 754,102 S.E.2d 259
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE, v. Alfred KNIGHT.

Page 259

102 S.E.2d 259

247 N.C. 754

STATE, v. Alfred KNIGHT.

No. 145

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

March 5, 1958

William N. Puett, Gastonia, for defendant, appellant.

George B. Patton, Atty. Gen., and Harry W. McGalliard, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

PARKER, Justice.

The defendant has eight assignments of error: six as to the admission of evidence, one as to the rejection of evidence, and another as to the failure of the court to allow defendant's motion for judgment of nonsuit made at the close of the State's evidence. The defendant offered no evidence.

About 10:30 p. m. on 3 November 1957 Ronnie Leonard Ramsey, a 16-year-old boy, and Victor Davis, a 14-year-old boy, left a moving picture show, and went to Bum's Corner in the City of Gastonia to thumb a ride home. Some ten minutes later Alfred Knight, the defendant, James Ertzberger, a 16-year-old boy and Olin Rushton, a 13-year-old boy, came to the same corner to thumb a ride.

This in substance is the testimony of Victor Davis as to what occurred there: After the defendant, James Ertzberger and Olin Rushton were there a few minutes, Olin Rushton threw three or four rocks at Ronnie Leonard Ramsey and Victor Davis. Ramsey said to Rushton, 'you'd better not hit us.' Whereupon, Knight, Ertzberger and Rushton came up to Ramsey and Davis, and asked Ramsey what he had said. Ramsey replied, 'you'd better not hit us' and 'I'm not afraid of any of you.' The defendant said, 'I'll make you afraid of me,' grabbed Ramsey, and gave him a shove. Then Ramsey hit the defendant in the face. There was a scuffle, and Ramsey and the defendant fell to the ground, with Ramsey landing on his stomach, and the defendant on top and straddle him. While they were in that position, the defendant hit Ramsey twice on the back of his head. Davis at that time left to seek the police. When he returned some ten minutes later, Ramsey was lying doubled up in a ditch. The defendant and his two companions were gone. A crowed had gathered.

This is the substance of James Ertzberger's testimony: The defendant told Rushton to throw a rock at Ramsey, which he did. Before this Ramsey had said nothing to the defendant. Rushton threw other rocks. Ramsey told them to stop throwing rocks at him. Rushton said to the defendant, 'let's go up there.' All three did. Ramsey again told them to stop throwing rocks at him, and he was not afraid of any of them. The defendant said to Ramsey, 'I can make you afraid of me.' Ramsey smiled, and turned away. The defendant pushed Ramsey, who hit himin the mouth. The defendant then knocked Ramsey down, and got on top of him. Ramsey was lying on his stomach with the defendant straddle of him. The defendant held the knuckles of his hands in Ramsey's temples, and then hit Ramsey three licks behind his head with his right hand. Ertzberger said to the defendant,' let's go.' The defendant got up, kicked Ramsey twice on the top of his head, called him a s. o. b., and then he and his two companions ran off.

The testimony of Olin Rushton is substantially similar to that of James Ertzberger. Rushton testified that just before the defendant assaulted Ramsey by pushing him, Ramsey said, 'I'm not scared of nary one of you,' and the defendant replied, 'I'll teach you to be scared of me.'

About 10:45 p. m. on the same night William R. Caldwell, a policeman of the City of Gastonia, went to Bum's Corner in answer to a call for help from Victor Davis. He saw Ronnie Leonard Ramsey lying on his stomach in a ditch with his head to one side. The officer saw three bubbles come out of his mouth. The policeman examined him for a pulse, and found none. His body was carried to a hospital in an ambulance. Ramsey never spoke in the officer's presence.

About 11:20 or 11:30 p. m. on this night Dr. Harry Riddle, an admitted medical expert, saw Ronnie Leonard Ramsey at the Gaston Memorial Hospital. He examined him, and made some X-Rays of him. In his opinion he was dead the first time he saw him. He had a small amount of blood in one nostril, a tiny scratch in that nostril, a small amount of blood in the right ear, and a small scratch at the base of that ear. In the doctor's opinion his skull was not fractured, and he saw no sign that Ranisey had been kicked with a shoe on the head. In Dr. Riddle's opinion he saw no injury on Ramsey which would have been fatal.

Dr. G. W. Belk, an admitted medical expert, testified that he examined Ronnie Leonard Ramsey on 22 October 1957 for an insurance company, and found him in good physical condition.

On 4 November 1957 Dr. William B. Kingsley, an admitted medical expert specializing in pathology, performed, in his words, a 'very meticulous and complete autopsy' of the dead body of Ronnie Leonard Ramsey. In response to a hypothetical question asked him by the Solicitor for the State, which question contained a full and fair recital of all relevant and material facts already in evidence, and which was properly framed, as to whether he had an opinion satisfactory to himself as to the cause of Ronnie Leonard Ramsey's death, Dr. Kingsley replied that he did. He was then asked what was his opinion. Dr. Kingsley replied as follows: 'In my opinion, the severe exertion, the fear, and the anger which the--Ronnie Ramsey had during the fight caused his heart to stop beating and resulted in his death.' Dr. Kingsley was then asked, that if the jury should find the facts to be as stated in the first hypothetical question, did he have an opinion as to whether or not Ramsey's heart would have stopped beating had he not been subjected to that type of exertion, fear, anger and so forth. He replied that he had an opinion. In reply to the question as to what his opinion was, he said: 'It would have, in my opinion, taken a situation like this, or similar to this, to have caused the circumstances which resulted in the cessation of heartbeat.' This in substance is Dr. Kingsley's testimony on cross-examination: In his postmortem examination of Ramsey's body he found no abnormalities about this boy's health and condition. However, his lungs were congested. In his opinion there was no traumatic injury sufficient to cause death: no bone fractures and a few small skin lacerations. In his opinion Ramsey's death was not a probable or natural consequence, nor did his death result from blows struck by the defendant. It is a fact that there is no affirmative finding that you can make after death to determine that cessation of heartbeat was the cause of death, unless you are examining the person while dying. He reached his conclusion as to the cause of death of Ramsey by eliminating all other known causes of death. He had personally examined three deaths of this nature in the past ten years. Fear, exertion and anger are not the only causes, or motivating causes, for cessation of heartbeat. Death can result from cessation of heartbeat where these things are not present. He did not know of his own knowledge, nor did he have any medical method for determining, that Ramsey suffered from fear, fright, anger or exertion on this occasion. He was then asked this question by defendant's counsel: 'Doctor, if there is no absolute, positive scientific or medical method for determining that the cause of death is cessation of heartbeat, how can you be so sure that such was the cause of death?' The doctor answered: 'Because my very meticulous and complete autopsy revealed no other cause of death.' The doctor further testified: 'I do not contend that science and medicine know all causes of death at the present time. I do not eliminate the possibility of unknown causes of cessation of hearbeat, or other unknown causes of death. In view of the fact that my findings in this cause of death are negative, there is a possibility of error in it.' On redirect examination the doctor testified that, in his opinion, the congestion in Ramsey's lungs found in his examination occurred at the time of his death.

The father of Ramsey testified that he did not know of any illness or sickness of his son prior to his death, nor did he know of any physical disability of his son. He saw his son's dead body that night at the hospital. He had some blood in both nostrils, a little blood in one ear, and seemed to have a bruise on the left side of his face.

The defendant has six assignments of error as to the admission of evidence, all relating to the testimony of Dr. William B. Kingsley. The doctor was asked two hypothetical questions. In reply to each hypothetical question he said that he had an opinion satisfactory to himself, and then he was asked what that opinion was. Four of defendant's assignments of error relate to these two questions: first to the hypothetical questions, and then to the questions as to what his opinion was. A fifth assignment of error is to the failure of the court to strike out one of his answers to one of these...