State v. Morrow, 223
| Decision Date | 14 October 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 223,223 |
| Citation | 262 N.C. 592,138 S.E.2d 245 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Charles E. MORROW. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Atty. Gen. T. W. Bruton and Asst. Atty. Gen. James F. Bullock, for the State.
George J. Miller, Charlotte, for defendant appellant.
Defendant Morrow assigns as error the order of the trial judge, entered upon motion of the solicitor, consolidating the armed robbery case and the rape case for trial. This assignment of error is overruled.
The State's evidence presents these facts: About 10 p. m. on 21 December 1963 Charles E. Morrow was driving an automobile, with Warren Hill Summers riding in it as a passenger, on Highway 51 near Pineville. They came up behind an automobile driven by Sara Lee Guion, in which her husband Benny Guion was a passenger. Morrow said to Summers, 'Let's rape her'; Summers agreed. Whereupon, Morrow drove past the Guion automobile about half a mile, and stopped his automobile across the highway blocking traffic. Sara Lee Guion drove up and stopped. Morrow and Summers got out of their automobile and walked to the Guion automobile. Morrow pointed a pistol at them and told them 'to stick them up.' Sara Lee Guion jumped out of her automobile and ran down the highway screaming. Summers testified Morrow ran down the highway, caught her, and brought her back; Sara Lee Guion testified Summers was the person who ran her down, caught her, and brought her back. The Guions were then placed in the Morrow automobile on the back seat. Summers set on the back seat with them, holding a pistol on them. Morrow then drove the automobile down the highway, and off the highway about two miles on a dirt road, and parked in the woods. Summers got out of the automobile, held the pistol on Benny Guion and forced him to get out of the automobile and go down into the woods with him. Then Morrow got into the back seat where Sara Lee Guion was, and by force and against her will ravished her. When he had finished, he told her to stay in the automobile. He then went in the woods, took the pistol from Summers, and held it on Benny Guion. Summers went to the automobile, got in, and by force and against her will ravished Sara Lee Guion. When Summers had Benny Guion in the woods holding a pistol on him and Morrow was ravishing Sara Lee Guion, Summers robbed Benny Guion of fifty-two cents in money. Sara Lee Guion testified: 'From where my automobile was stopped, down to the wooded area, the two men in the car asked us on the way down if we were married, and we told them yes, and they said they needed $25.00 to go to Ennisville.'
The two indictments here charge Morrow with crimes which are so connected in time and place as that evidence at the trial of one of the indictments is competent and admissible at the trial of the other, and under such circumstances the trial judge was authorized by the provisions of G.S. § 15-152 in his sound discretion to order their consolidation for trial. State v. White, 256 N.C. 244, 123 S.E.2d 483; State v. Truelove, 224 N.C. 147, 29 S.E.2d 460; State v. Chapman, 221 N.C. 157, 19 S.E.2d 250; State v. Combs, 200 N.C. 671, 158 S.E. 252; Strong's N.C. Index, Vol. I, Criminal Law, § 87.
We have examined defendant's assignments of error to the admission of evidence over his objections and exceptions, and to the refusal of the court to strike it out, and no prejudicial error appears. A discussion of them seriatim would serve no useful purpose, and they are all overruled.
Defendant has no assignments of error of the charge of the court to the jury. In the trial before Judge Braswell we find
No error.
From the judgment of life imprisonment, defendant appealed in apt time to the Supreme Court. On 4 May 1964, Campbell, J., entered an order requiring the county commissioners of Mecklenburg County to pay all necessary costs for obtaining from the court reporter a transcript of the evidence and charge of the court for the use of defendant, an indigent, and to pay all necessary costs for filing in the Supreme Court the statement of the case on appeal and defendant's brief, to the end that defendant's appeal might be properly perfected.
While defendant's appeal was pending in the Supreme Court for argument at the Fall Term 1964, defendant by his counsel made a motion before Judge Walker presiding over the 15 June 1964 Criminal Session of Mecklenburg County for a new trial, and in support of his motion he attached thereto an unsworn letter from Warren H. Summers addressed to his...
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State v. Bass
...the trial judge was authorized by G.S. § 15--152, in his discretion, to order their consolidation for trial. State v. Morrow, 262 N.C. 592, 138 S.E.2d 245 (1964); State v. Hamilton, 264 N.C. 277, 141 S.E.2d 506 (1965); State v. Turner, 268 N.C. 225, 150 S.E.2d 406 (1966); State v. Fox, 277 ......
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State v. Alford
...(1972); State v. Turner, 268 N.C. 225, 150 S.E.2d 406 (1966); State v. Hamilton, 264 N.C. 277, 141 S.E.2d 506 (1965); State v. Morrow, 262 N.C. 592, 138 S.E.2d 245 (1964).' Alford contends, however, that the defenses of the defendants in this case were antagonistic. Alford testified as a wi......
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State v. Jarrette
...They were so related in time and circumstance as to permit the admission in evidence of each in the trial of the others. State v. Morrow, 262 N.C. 592, 138 S.E.2d 245; State v. McClain, 240 N.C. 171, 81 S.E.2d 364; State v. Harris, 223 N.C. 967, 28 S.E.2d 232; Stansbury, North Caroline Evid......
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