State v. Sears

• Decision Date: 31 January 1867
• Citation: 61 N.C. 146
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. JOHN B. SEARS and PASCHALL SEARS.

61 N.C. 146

STATE

v.JOHN B. SEARS and PASCHALL SEARS.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1867.

Whether the doctrine of reasonable doubt applies to misdemeanors or not, a charge that, to convict, the jury must be “fully satisfied” of the defendant's guilt, is all that he has the right to ask.

Reasonable doubt is not a necessary formula, and it can only be required in any case that the Judge impress upon the jury the principle that the innocent must not be punished.

In an indictment for malicious mischief it is sufficient to charge the jury that they must be “satisfied” as to the ownership of the property injured.

It is not a ground for arrest of judgment that the defendant was convicted upon an indictment found by a grand jury in 1863, while the rightful State Government was suspended.

An indictment is a judicial proceeding within the meaning of the Ordinance of the Convention of 1865, entitled “An Ordinance declaring what laws and ordinances are in force,” &c.

The Convention in adopting that Ordinance did not exceed its powers; nor is the Ordinance in the nature of an ex post facto law.

The proper time for an objection to the grand jury that found an indictment is before the trial.

MALICIOUS MISCHIEF, tried before Merrimon, J., at Fall Term, 1866, of the Superior Court of WAKE.

The defendants were indicted at Common Law for maliciously killing a mule, the property of one Robert Williams. The bill was found at Fall Term, 1863.

The evidence of the killing, by the defendants, was circumstantial, and his Honor charged the jury that, to convict, they “must be satisfied, fully satisfied,” that the mule was killed by one of the defendants, moved by malice to the owner, and that the other was present, aiding and abetting in the killing, moved by like malice; and they must be “satisfied” that Robert Williams was the owner of the mule.

The counsel for the defendants asked his Honor to charge that the jury, to convict, must be satisfied of the guilt of the defendants “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The court refused so to charge, and the defendants excepted for misdirection.

There was some evidence that the mule had been occasionally mischievous, and the counsel for the defendants below asked the court to charge that he was a nuisance and the defendants had a right to kill him, though not engaged in mischief the day he was killed. The court refused, and the defendants again excepted; but this ground of exception was abandoned in this court.

Verdict of Guilty as to both defendants; Rule for a new trial; Rule discharged; Judgment, and Appeal.

Attorney General, and Phillips & Battle, for the State .

Haywood, for the defendants .

READE, J.

The defendants' counsel asked the court to charge the jury “that they must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt,” &c. His Honor declined to give the instructions. It is not stated whether he refused because he did not think the instructions proper in themselves, or because he had already substantially given them.

Whether the doctrine of reasonable doubt, as it is commonly called, applies to misdemeanors, or only to capital cases in favorem vitæ, seems not to be settled in this State. There are dicta on both sides of the question; and as an additional dictum would but add to the uncertainty, we prefer to leave the question as it is until it shall be directly presented for decision.

In this case we think his Honor did, substantially, give the instructions asked for; and having given them substantially, he was not obliged to repeat them specifically.

His Honor had charged the jury that “they must be satisfied, fully satisfied,” &c. “Fully satisfied” is at least as favorable for the defendant as “satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt.” For the latter implies that there may be a conviction, although there be ever so many doubts other than reasonable. But fully satisfied is to the exclusion of all doubts, reasonable or other. It is said that it is difficult for the jury to understand what ““fully satisfied” means. It is at least as difficult for them to understand what “reasonable doubt” means. The error consists in supposing that any particular formula of words is necessary, or that any have been prescribed.

It is a great first principle, founded in justice as well as in humanity, that the innocent shall in no case be punished. It follows that before any one can be punished there must be a certainty of his guilt.

Inasmuch, then, as a doubt required an acquittal, it was necessary to define doubt, and especially to define the kind of doubt which should operate as as acquittal; for doubts are of as many grades as there are grades from an atom to a mountain, and of as many degrees as there are degrees from a shadow to the substance. They are “slight,” “trivial,” “fanciful,” on the one side; ““reasonable,” “substantial,” “grave,” on the other. Must a doubt like an atom or a shadow acquit? Or if the doubts were graded by numbers from one, the...