State v. Meadows
| Decision Date | 12 December 1951 |
| Docket Number | No. 577,577 |
| Citation | 234 N.C. 657,68 S.E.2d 406 |
| Parties | STATE, v. MEADOWS. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Atty. Gen. Harry McMullan, Asst. Atty. Gen. Ralph Moody, and C. G. Powell, Jr., Member of Staff, Raleigh, for the State.
W. K. Rhodes, Jr., Wilmington, for defendant, appellant.
The assignment of error raises this question: Where the accused in a criminal action pleads guilty to the charge of a misdemeanor in the superior court upon the hearing of his appeal from the judgment pronounced against him on his former plea of guilty to the same charge in an inferior court having complete jurisdiction of the offense, does the judge of the superior court have power to impose a greater sentence than that imposed by the inferior court from which the appeal is taken?
The charge is bottomed on this statutory provision: 'Any person whose operator's * * * license has been * * * revoked other than permanently, as provided in this article, who shall drive any motor vehicle upon the highways of the state while such license is * * * revoked, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine of not less than two hundred dollars ($200.00) or imprisonment in the discretion of the court, or both such fine and imprisonment.' G.S. § 20-28(a); 1947 Session Laws, Ch. 1067, sec. 16.
The sentence of the superior court does not transgress the limits fixed by law. State v. Moschoures, 214 N.C. 321, 199 S.E. 92. The defendant insists, however, that the sentence is void because the judge of the superior court was powerless in law to change the judgment of the recorder's court. To sustain this position, he invokes former decisions, which enunciated the rule that where the accused in a criminal action pleads guilty to a misdemeanor in an inferior court having complete jurisdiction of the offense and appeals to the superior court from the judgment pronounced by the inferior court on his plea, the superior court sits as a mere court of review to determine the legality of the judgment of the inferior court.
The defendant argues that this rule still obtains except in so far as it has been modified by Chapter 482 of the 1947 Session Laws, which is now codified as G.S. § 15-177.1; that this statute abolishes the rule only in cases where the accused pleads not guilty in the superior court; that the rule applies in the present action because the defendant pleaded guilty in the superior court; that in consequence the judge of the superior court sat as a mere court of review in the present action with power to do one of these things only: (1) To discharge the defendant if he adjudged the proceedings of the inferior court to be fatally defective; (2) to remand the cause to the inferior court for proper sentence if he deemed the original sentence to be improper in form or substance; and (3) to affirm the sentence of the inferior court if he found it to be valid; and that the judge of the superior court disregarded his judicial function in the premises and usurped power not conferred upon him by law when he undertook to change the sentence of the inferior court.
These contentions overlook both the history of the rule and the manifest object of the legislature in enacting G.S. § 15-177.1.
The rule has never been concerned with the plea interposed by an accused on the hearing of his appeal in the superior court. It has rested on his plea in the inferior court. Its underlying rationale has been that the plea of guilty in the inferior court waived the right of the accused under G. S. § 15-177 and similar laws to have the cause tried or even considered anew or de novo on its...
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State v. Sparrow
...This is true even when an accused pleads guilty in the inferior court. State v. Broome, 269 N.C. 661, 153 S.E.2d 384; State v. Meadows, 234 N.C. 657, 68 S.E.2d 406. When an appeal of right is taken to the Superior Court, in contemplation of law it is as if the case had been brought there or......
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Doss v. State of North Carolina, C-230-G-65.
...the former proceeding of the court below, irrespective of the plea entered or the judgment pronounced thereon." In State v. Meadows, 234 N.C. 657, 68 S.E.2d 406, 408, (1951), Judge Ervin said in construing the above "(W)henever the accused in a criminal action appeals to the superior court ......
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State v. Sparrow, 6926SC504
...appeal from district court to superior court trial is de novo. State v. Overby, 4 N.C.App. 280, 166 S.E.2d 461 (1969); State v. Meadows, 234 N.C. 657, 68 S.E.2d 406 (1951). We do not agree with the appellants' contention that North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d......
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State Carolina v. Petty
...Sparrow, 276 N.C. 499, 507, 173 S.E.2d 897, 902 (1970) (citing State v. Goff, 205 N.C. 545, 172 S.E. 407 (1934), and State v. Meadows, 234 N.C. 657, 68 S.E.2d 406 (1951) (other citations omitted)). “[I]nasmuch as the trial in the Superior Court is de novo, alleged errors committed in the in......