State v. Sch.Field

• Decision Date: 15 November 1922
• Docket Number: (No. 378.)
• Citation: 114 S.E. 466
• Parties: STATE. v. SCHOOLFIELD et al.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

114 S.E. 466

STATE.

v.SCHOOLFIELD et al.

(No. 378.)

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Nov. 15, 1922.

Appeal from Superior Court, Guilford County; Harding, Judge.

Claud Schoolfield was convicted of forgery, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Criminal prosecution tried upon an indictment, charging the defendants with the forgery of a check and also with uttering the same with intent to defraud, knowing it to have been falsely forged. C. S. 4293, 4294. Clarence Schoolfield was acquitted. His co-defendant, Claud Schoolfield, was convicted, and from the judgment pronounced he appeals, assigning errors.

S. B. Adams and R. C. Strudwick, both of Greensboro, for appellant.

Attorney General Manning and Assistant Attorney General Nash, for the State.

STACY, J. [1] The only serious exception appearing on the record is the one directed to the following portion of his honor's charge:

"Reasonable doubt, gentlemen, however, does not mean any and all possible doubt. It does not mean that you are to sit in the jury box and refuse to convict any man of a charge of violating the law until your mind has been disabused of all possible peradventure of a doubt. That is not what the law contemplates by a reasonable doubt; but a reasonable doubt means that when you have heard all of the evidence in the case, when you have heard the arguments and contentions of the state and of the defendants, when you have heard the instructions of the court, as it endeavors to apply the rules of law in the case to the evidence for your consideration, does that satisfy you—does the evidence in this case or the lack of evidence in this case raise in your mind that sort of a doubt which would be raised in the mind of a man possessed of his reasonable and normal faculties when considering it all? If the state has satisfied you that the defendants are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, it would be your duty to convict them. If it has failed to so satisfy you, then it is your duty to give them the benefit of the doubt and acquit them."

It is the contention of the defendant that the use of the words, "Does that satisfy you?" in the above charge was insufficient, and should be held for reversible error. This interrogatory expression, taken in connection with the context and the manner in which it was used, could hardly have left an erroneous impression with the jury. His honor immediately added:

"If the state has satisfied you that the defendants are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, it would be your duty to...