State v. Shinn
| Decision Date | 04 November 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 361,361 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE, v. SHINN. |
Harry McMullan, Atty. Gen., Ralph Bruton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Charles G. Powell Jr., Raleigh, Member of Staff, for the State.
B. W. Blackwelder, Concord, Ernest R. Alexander, Kannapolis, R. Furman James, and Clyde L. Propst, Jr., Concord, for appellant.
The defendant excepts to and assigns as error the refusal of the trial judge to permit him on cross-examination of the State's witnesses, to show that others who lived in the immediate vicinity of the defendant's home were known to deal in liquor. It is argued that since the State did not prove that the liquor found outside of the defendant's home or any part thereof was on his premises, the excluded evidence 'might well point with equal gravity to the defendant's innocence.'
Evidence which can have no effect except to cast suspicion upon another or to raise a mere conjectural inference that the crime may have been committed by another (or as in this case that some one else may have been responsible for the presence of some of the liquor seized), is not admissible. 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law, § 622, at page 951; State v. Beverly, 88 N.C. 632; State v. Gee, 92 N.C. 756; State v. Smarr, 121 N.C. 669, 28 S.E. 549; State v. Smith, 211 N.C. 93, 189 S.E. 175; State v. Howie, 213 N.C. 782, 197 S.E. 611. These exceptions are without merit.
The defendant also excepts to the following portions of his Honor's charge to the jury:
'Under the law you are permitted to have in your possession or in your home one gallon or eight pints of tax-paid liquor, and the Court charges you that if you find from the evidence in this case and beyond a reasonable doubt, the burden being upon the State so to satisfy you that the defendant had in excess of one gallon of liquor in his home or in his possession at any one time upon his premises, and if you so find, whether tax-paid or nontax-paid, it would be your duty to return a verdict of guilty of the unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor. * * *
'And so if you find from the evidence in this case and beyond a reasonable doubt, the burden being upon the State so to satisfy you that the defendant had in his possession at the time and place in question, * * * in excess of one gallon of tax-paid liquor, and you so find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, that is in his possession and upon his premises, and you so find from the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt, the burden being upon the State to so satisfy you, it would be your duty to return a verdict of guilty of unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor.'
The above charge was clearly erroneous with respect to the amount of tax-paid liquor a person may lawfully have or keep in his private dwelling while the same is occupied and used by him exclusively as his dwelling, when such liquor is for his personal consumption, the consumption of the members of his family residing in such dwelling, or for...
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State v. Wilson
...(1981); State v. Stanfield, 292 N.C. 357, 233 S.E.2d 574 (1977); State v. Jenkins, 292 N.C. 179, 232 S.E.2d 648 (1977); State v. Shinn, 238 N.C. 535, 78 S.E.2d 388 (1953); State v. Smith, 211 N.C. 93, 189 S.E. 175 Applying this rule to the case before us, we cannot say that the trial judge ......
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State v. Bryant
...error prejudicial to them. State v. Ingland, 278 N.C. 42, 178 S.E.2d 577; State v. Goldberg, 261 N.C. 181, 134 S.E.2d 334; State v. Shinn, 238 N.C. 535, 78 S.E.2d 388. Defendants maintain that the trial judge violated the provisions of G.S. § 1--180 by expressing an opinion in his instructi......
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D & W, Inc. v. City of Charlotte, 286
...all practical purposes, under Turlington, the only place one could legally possess any intoxicating liquor was at home. State v. Shinn, 238 N.C. 535, 78 S.E.2d 388. Even so, the Turlington Act made it unlawful for a person to purchase or transport intoxicating liquor anywhere in the State. ......
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State v. Gaines
...show the guilt of one other than the accused is rather unsettled. See Stansbury N.C. Evidence § 93 (Brandis Rev.1973); State v. Shinn, 238 N.C. 353, 78 S.E.2d 388 (1953); State v. Smith, 211 N.C. 93, 189 S.E. 175 (1937); State v. Gee, 92 N.C. 756 (1885); State v. Baxter, 82 N.c. 602 (1880);......