State v. Redditt

• Decision Date: 18 February 1925
• Docket Number: 3.
• Citation: 126 S.E. 506,189 N.C. 176
• Parties: STATE v. REDDITT.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

126 S.E. 506

189 N.C. 176

STATE v. REDDITT.

No. 3.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

February 18, 1925

Appeal from Superior Court, Beaufort County; Sinclair, Judge.

L. H Redditt was convicted of assault with deadly weapon with intent to kill resulting in serious injury, and he appeals. New trial.

Criminal prosecution tried upon indictments charging the appealing defendant and his son, D. E. Redditt, with maliciously maiming Tobe Minor (C. S. § 4212) and with assaulting him with a deadly weapon, with intent to kill, and inflicting serious injury not resulting in death (C. S. § 4214). As all the cases grew out of the same occurrence, they were consolidated and tried before the same jury. Both defendants were acquitted on the charge of maiming, and the son, D. E Redditt, was acquitted on the charge of an assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, resulting in serious injury, but the father, L. H. Redditt, was convicted on this latter charge, and from the judgment pronounced thereon he appeals, assigning errors.

Instruction that intent to kill presumed from firing of gun wounding another held error.

Murderous intent not presumed, where no homicide committed but must be proved by state.

W. A Thompson, of Aurora, and Lindsay C. Warren and Small, MacLean & Rodman, all of Washington, N. C., for appellant.

D. G. Brummitt, Atty. Gen., and Frank Nash, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

STACY J.

The statute under which the appealing defendant was indicted and convicted provides that any person who assaults another (1) with a deadly weapon, (2) with intent to kill, and (3) inflicts serious injury not resulting in death, shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punishable by imprisonment in the state's prison or be worked on the county roads for a period of not less than four months nor more than ten years. C. S. § 4214. These three essential elements must be proved in order to warrant a conviction under the statute ( State v. Crisp, 188 N.C. 800, 125 S.E. 543); and the burden is on the state to establish them all beyond a reasonable doubt, where the defendant enters a plea of "not guilty" to the charge contained in the bill of indictment, as was done in the instant case. State v. Singleton, 183 N.C. 738, 110 S.E. 846; Speas v. Bank, 188 N.C. 527, 125 S.E. 398.

The following excerpt from the charge forms the basis of one of the defendant's exceptive assignments of error:

"In this case, gentlemen of the jury, when the defendants admit that they fired the guns which wounded Tobe Minor, the burden of proof thereupon shifts to the defendants to satisfy the jury that they were justifiable in shooting him. In other words, after having admitted that they shot him, the law presumes that they are guilty of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and there is no dispute in this case that serious injury was inflicted upon him, and in that case the burden rests upon the defendants to satisfy the jury from

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