State v. Mciver, 655.
| Decision Date | 14 December 1949 |
| Docket Number | No. 655.,655. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE. v. McIVER. |
Howard McIver was convicted in Superior Court, Cumberland County, Q. K. Nimocks, Jr., J, of assault on a female, and he appealed.
The Supreme Court, Seawell, J, affirmed the judgment on ground that evidence was in law sufficient to support the conviction.
The defendant was tried in the Recorder's Court of the City of Fayetteville on a warrant charging him with an assault on a female, and found guilty. He appealed to the Superior Court of Cumberland County, where he was again found guilty by the jury, and, from the sentence imposed, appeals to this Court. The appeal poses the single question whether the evidence is legally sufficient to sustain the verdict, raised by demurrer and motion to nonsuit in the lower court.
Mrs. Helen Outlaw, the alleged subject of the assault, a white woman of good character, worked at a laundry on Russell Street in Fayetteville. She identified McIver, a colored man, as the person she met on that street, near the railroad crossing, on January 7, about 7:00 o'clock in the morning on her way to work. At that time he said to her, "You are looking pretty this morning." On Thursday morning, on her way to work, she met him again. It had been raining, and she was walking a little to the edge of the sidewalk. "There was no street there, and I looked around, back of this water, and he was coming toward me, right around the water and he started talking."
It is not necessary to print the remark, but it may fairly be construed as an indecent sexual proposal. "I was so frightened I got off the street and a car must have been right there because it honked at me and I went on across the street."
She reported these occurrences to the police, and had an assurance that she would receive protection, was told to go on next day as she had usually been doing.
On Friday morning, about the same hour, when she had gotten to about the same place on her way to work--she again met the defendant, and he said to her precisely the same thing as before, Mr. McLaurin, of the police force, who had promised to be there, appeared. Mrs. Outlaw pointed out the man to the policeman, and crumpled into a sitting position on the sidewalk.
She testified that the indecent proposals of the defendant had such an effect on her as to "upset her all over."
The defendant was placed under arrest.
On cross-examination she testified: "This colored man never placed a hand on me in his life; I don't know whether he would have or not, but he was coming." The occurrence, she stated, was near the Bryan Pontiac place, and the Coca-Cola plant.
She further stated that when he accosted her on Thursday morning he was
For the State, C. D. McLaurin, a policeman of the City of Fayetteville, testified that he saw both Mrs. Outlaw and the defendant that morning on Russell Street. He did not speak to her at that time. After witness first saw her she went on down the street. McLaurin was in a car, and watched Mrs. Outlaw go to work that morning. He circled the block up to Win-slow Street. He met the defendant in front of the Coca-Cola plant, coming in his direction. Witness circled the block, turned back up that street, and about five minutes later found the defendant "going west, back in the direction of Winslow Street." Witness came back until he saw Mrs. Outlaw coming down the street, about the middle of the block, and saw this colored man meeting her, and when he was within three or four feet he said something to Mrs. Outlaw which witness was not near enough to understand. Mrs. Outlaw pointed to the defendant and McLaurin arrested him, placing him in the car. Witness then went to Mrs. Outlaw, who was sitting on the edge of the curb, and she identified the man as the man who had molested her.
On cross-examination the witness testified that it was light enough for him to recognize the defendant. "There is no sidewalk there; it is a path where people generally walk * * * used as a sidewalk." The man did not stop walking when meeting Mrs. Outlaw,
Defendant demurred and moved for judgment of nonsuit. The motion was declined and defendant excepted.
Defendant introduced several witnesses who testified as to his good character.
Amongst them was Guy M. Brock, for whom defendant had been working in January when this occurrence is alleged to have taken place, but was not working at the time of the trial. He testified that a person walking on the third block of Russell Street would not be going to his place of business.
Fay Johnson, for whom the defendant had worked about a month, said that since he had worked there his character and reputation were good.
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