State v. Morgan

• Decision Date: 12 December 1956
• Docket Number: No. 508,508
• Citation: 95 S.E.2d 507,245 N.C. 215
• Parties: STATE, v. Vernon LeGrand MORGAN.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Page 507

95 S.E.2d 507

245 N.C. 215

STATE, v. Vernon LeGrand MORGAN.

No. 508

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Dec. 12, 1956

H. F. Seawell, Jr., Carthage, and Charles H. Dorsett, Troy, for defendant, appellant.

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

DEVIN, Justice.

The defendant admitted that he shot and killed the deceased, but claimed that this was done in self-defense. The jury rejected his plea and found him guilty of murder in the second degree. The evidence supports the verdict and judgment.

The defendant has brought his case here for review, assigning errors in the trial which he asserts influenced the adverse verdict.

Error is assigned in the ruling of the court in sustaining objection to the introduction of a copy of a Recorder's Court judgment showing the conviction of Roy Cagle, the deceased, in 1952 on the charge of assault with a deadly weapon. Having offered, on his plea of self-defense, evidence that the deceased bore the general reputation of being a violent and dangerous man to his knowledge, the defendant contends he was entitled also to show instances of violence on the part of the deceased in support of his contention that he acted under the reasonable apprehension of death or great bodily harm.

The competency of evidence of the general reputation of the deceased for violence, known to the defendant, when offered in support of his plea that he acted in self-de-fense, has long been recognized by this Court. State v. Turpin, 77 N.C. 473; State v. Blackwell, 162 N.C. 672, 78 S.E. 316; State v. Hodgin, 210 N.C. 371, 186 S.E. 495; State v. Rawley, 237 N.C. 233, 74 S.E.2d 620. But the competency of testimony relating to a single instance of lawlessness on the part of the deceased may not be held supported by the rule enunciated in those cases. State v. LeFevers, 221 N.C. 184, 19 S.E.2d 488, 489.

In the LeFevers case, supra, we said: 'Where there is evidence tending to show that the defendant acted in self-defense, evidence of the general reputation of the deceased for violence may be admitted, but this rule does not render admissible evidence of specific acts of violence which have no connection with the homicide. State v. Hodgin, 210 N.C. 371, 186 S.E. 495; State v. Melton, 166 N.C. 442, 81 S.E. 602; Smith v. State, 197 Ala. 193, 72 So. 316.' See also Gunter v. State, 63 Ga.App. 65, 10 S.E.2d 264.

There was no error in sustaining objection to the proffered testimony.

The defendant also assigns error in the rulings of the trial judge with respect to the admission of testimony in several other instances to which he noted exceptions, but upon examination we find no error in the rulings complained of.

The defendant assigns error in the court's charge to the jury in the respects to which he noted exception. His 16th, 17th and 18th exceptions are directed to the following language of the court:

'Now in this case the defendant has seen fit to set up as a defense a plea of self-defense as a justification for taking the life of the deceased.' (Exception No. 16)

'The burden of satisfying you as to that defense is upon the defendant to show, not beyond a reasonable doubt or by the greater weight of the evidence, but to show it to your satisfaction, therefore, it becomes necessary for you to know...