State v. Smith
| Decision Date | 31 October 1885 |
| Citation | 93 N.C. 516 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. W. F. SMITH. |
INDICTMENT tried before Avery, Judge, and a jury, at Fall Term, 1885, of the Superior Court of BURKE county.
The defendant, agent of the mercantile house of Whiteley, Tapscott & Melville, doing business in Baltimore, is charged with violating section twenty-eight of the act to raise revenue, which was ratified and took effect on March 12, 1885, in selling by sample and at wholesale, certain goods specified in the indictment, and without license therefor, on April 16, 1885, to T. T. Daves & Bro., at Morganton in this State.
It was in evidence that his principals had paid for and obtained a license, in the defendant's possession at the time of sale, which had however expired, and that they had on January 26, preceding, taken out another for the present year, of which the defendant was not in possession when he made the sale. The defendant, examined on his own behalf, stated that when he left Baltimore, he intended to bring out with him the license last issued, but by mistake, as he discovered in looking over his papers previous to the day of sale, had taken possession of that which had expired.
He stated further, that his principals had another agent in the same service in the State, but whether they had secured another license to protect his operations also, he was unable to say.
1. His counsel contended that as the license issued in January, while the revenue law, enacted at the previous session of the General Assembly, was in force, and the offence was under a corresponding section made an offence with a punishment prescribed which was within the cognizance of a justice of the peace, an indictment in the Superior Court would not lie.
2. That actual possession of the license at the time of the sale was not required for his protection against the penalty.
3. That it was incumbent on the State to prove a criminal intent in the defendant, in order to make the act a misdemeanor.
These instructions, terminating in a request to charge the jury to find for the defendant, were refused, and the Court directed the jury as follows:
1. If the defendant made sale of the goods in April, his offence would fall under the condemnation of the act of 1885, which rendered it illegal, and it was not in any sense ex post facto.
2. If the defendant sold the goods, knowing that he had no protecting license with him, in his actual possession, it was a violation of the law.
3. When the intent is not of the essence of the offence, a party doing a forbidden act must be presumed to intend the natural consequences of what he does; and as defendant had testified that he did not have in Morganton...
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State v. Craft
...to do the act is the criminal intent which makes the offense. State v. McLean, 121 N. C. 589, 28 S. E. 140, 42 L. R. A. 721; State v. Smith, 93 N. C. 516; State v. Heaton, 77 N. C. 505; State v. Presnell, 34 N. C. 103. The court charged the jury: "I have not the making of the law. I can onl......
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State v. Craft
...intent to do the act is the criminal intent which makes the offense. State v. McLean, 121 N.C. 589, 28 S.E. 140, 42 L. R. A. 721; State v. Smith, 93 N.C. 516; State Heaton, 77 N.C. 505; State v. Presnell, 34 N.C. 103. The court charged the jury: "I have not the making of the law. I can only......
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State v. Morgan
... ... constitutes the crime. If the person has done the act which ... in itself is a violation of the law, he will not be heard to ... say that he did not have the intent. State v. King, ... 86 N.C. 603; State v. Voight, 90 N.C. 741; State ... v. Smith, 93 N.C. 516; State v. McBrayer, 98 ... N.C. 619, 2 S.E. 755; State v. McLean, 121 N.C. 589, ... 28 S.E. 140, 42 L. R. A. 721. But this principle does not ... apply when the act is itself equivocal, and becomes criminal ... only by reason of the intent. State v. King, and cases supra ... In ... ...