State v. Lord

• Decision Date: 06 June 1945
• Docket Number: 369
• Citation: 34 S.E.2d 205,225 N.C. 354
• Parties: STATE v. LORD.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

34 S.E.2d 205

225 N.C. 354

STATE v. LORD.

No. 369

Supreme Court of North Carolina

June 6, 1945

Criminal prosecution tried upon indictment charging the prisoner with the murder of one Elder Phifer.

The record discloses that the deceased was a girl about seventeen years of age. The defendant had been keeping company with her and had become jealous of her attentions to others, or angered because of her coolness to him, and had threatened to take her life. On Saturday night, October 21, 1944, between 9 and 10 o'clock, the defendant saw the deceased at a cafe in company with another girl and boy. He called to her, but she refused his attentions and went into the cafe. The defendant then went to his rooming-house and obtained a shotgun belonging to another occupant of the same house and returned to the cafe. Not finding the deceased there, he took a taxi and went to another cafe, about two and a half miles away, where he stayed until it closed around midnight; then he went to a cotton patch near the home of the deceased and lay in wait for her. As she approached, between 12 and 1 o'clock, the defendant came from the cotton patch out into the road, and shot and killed her. The defendant then carried the gun back to its owner, said that he had shot the deceased, and asked that the police be notified where he could be found.

On the following day, after his arrest, the defendant made a statement to the officers and recited the facts substantially as above.

The defendant offered no evidence.

Verdict 'We, the jury, find Clarence Lord, the defendant, guilty of murder in the first degree. The jury wishes to announce to the court that we asked for Divine guidance before our deliberation.'

Judgment Death by asphyxiation.

The defendant appeals, assigning errors.

Harry M. McMullan, Atty. Gen. and Hughes J. Rhodes and Ralph M Moody, Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.

C. M. Lewellyn, of Concord, for defendant.

STACY Chief Justice.

The case presents little more than an issue of fact, determinable alone by the jury. The evidence amply supports the verdict. State v. Satterfield, 207 N.C. 118, 176 S.E. 466.

The first assignment of error seeks to raise the question of jury defect and bias, but the exceptions upon which it is based hardly suffice for the purpose. State v. Levy, 187 N.C. 581, 122 S.E. 386. There is nothing to show that members of the Negro race were excluded from the regular panel or the special venire. The trial court found as a fact that they were not excluded from the jury box. The negroes who were called as prospective jurors from the special venire, which was ordered by the court of its own motion, were challenged by the solicitor for cause, in that they were not freeholders of the county, and the defendant complains that he was thereby deprived of any opportunity to...