State v. Laney
| Decision Date | 31 October 1882 |
| Citation | 87 N.C. 535 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. A. A. LANEY. |
INDICTMENT for forcible trespass tried at Spring Term, 1882, of UNION Superior Court, before Gudger, J.
The charge made against the defendants, Laney and others, is, that with force and arms, violently, forcibly, and with a strong hand, they did break and enter the premises of one Gay, there situate and being in his possession, and he being then and there actually present and forbidding them so to do.
The proof was that during year 1881, the prosecutor and the defendant, Laney, had cultivated distinct portions of a field surrounded by a common enclosure-- the prosecutor planting corn, and the defendant, cotton.
In consequence of certain information received, the prosecutor went to the field in September of that year, and found the defendants, Frank Laney, (son of the defendant A. A. Laney) and Carlock (his servant) cutting down the corn with hoes. He forbade them, but they continued, saying that they had been instructed to cut it by the other defendant. The prosecutor thereupon left, making no effort to put them out of his field, because he did not wish to be involved in a breach of the peace, and the defendants continued to cut the corn.
There was a verdict of guilty and the defendants appealed from the judgment pronounced.
Attorney General, for the State .
Messrs. Payne & Vann, for defendants .
This court is of opinion that the evidence offered does not support the charge of forcible trespass, and that the defendants were improperly convicted and sentenced.
To constitute that offence, the act complained of must be done presenti domino, and must involve a breach of the peace or tend thereto. The injury done to the prosecutor by the loss of his corn, the law will redress by a civil action. But before it can amount to a public wrong to be punished by indictment, there must be something done, at the time of the entry, to put the prosecutor in fear, or incite him to force either to resent his wrongs or protect his property; and as none of these things can happen in his absence, so neither can the offence be committed in his absence.
The title to the property is of no moment in forcible trespass. But it is the invasion of the actual possession of another and not his constructive possession, done in his presence and under such circumstances as endangers the public peace, that makes the offence.
“The very gist of the offence,” says Judge PEARSON in State v. McCanless, 9 Ired., 375, “is the high-handed...
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State v. Baker
... ... State v. Davenport, 156 N.C. 596, 72 S.E. 7; ... State v. Campbell, 133 N.C. 640, 45 S.E. 344; ... State v. Fender, 125 N.C. 649, 34 S.E. 448; ... State v. Webster, 121 N.C. 586, 28 S.E. 254; ... State v. Howell, 107 N.C. 835, 12 S.E. 569; ... State v. Marsh, 91 N.C. 632; State v ... Laney, 87 N.C. 535, 536. It is said in cases involving ... this class of criminal trespasses that 'if the defendant ... has a better title than the prosecutor to the premises or to ... the possession thereof, he can assert it by due course of ... law, but he cannot do so by violating the criminal law ... ...
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State v. Cooke
...actual possession in the prosecutor. State v. Simpson, 12 N.C. 504; State v. McCauless, 31 N.C. 375; State v. Ray, 32 N.C. 39; State v. Laney, 87 N.C. 535; State v. Davenport, 156 N.C. 597, 72 S.E.7. Whether the right to possession was a good defense at common law was left unsettled in Stat......
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State v. Davenport
...ability in this court, and a man who was eminent in his profession and at the bar as a criminal lawyer) in the case of State v. Laney, 87 N.C. 535, and it is by numerous decisions of this court. State v. McCauless, 31 N.C. 375; State v. Ross, 49 N.C. 315, 69 Am. Dec. 751; State v. Woodward,......
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Saunders v. Gilbert
... ... As the parties ... differ materially as to the nature of the evidence, it ... becomes necessary to state it at some length, all of it ... having been introduced by the plaintiffs: ... The ... plaintiff Columbia Saunders testified: "I ... or violence, as it certainly tended to intimidate the ... plaintiffs and to put them in fear. State v. Laney, ... 87 N.C. 535. It is therefore because the acts were committed ... in a public place, and were just as much calculated to ... produce a breach ... ...