State v. Smith

• Decision Date: 23 March 1910
• Parties: STATE v. SMITH.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

67 S.E. 508

152 N.C. 798

STATE v. SMITH.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

March 23, 1910

Appeal from Superior Court, Wake County; W. R. Allen, Judge.

Stephen Smith appeals from a conviction. Affirmed.

It is no defense to a prosecution for an offense, not against an individual, but against the public, as an illegal sale of liquor, that the one buying it did so not for his own use but with money furnished by the chief of police to make the purchase, with the view of having the seller indicted and convicted.

Douglass & Lyon, for appellant.

The Attorney General, for the State.

CLARK C.J.

The defendant was indicted for retailing whisky. The evidence for the state tended to show that J. P. Stell, the chief of police of Raleigh, furnished certain money to witness Hammock with which to buy liquor, and also additional pay for his services in the matter, and under orders of the chief of police he went to the defendant, in company with one Pope, a city policeman, and purchased intoxicating liquor of the defendant, with the view of having him indicted and punished in the court of the police justice of the city of Raleigh.

The sole question presented by the appeal is whether this conduct on the part of the chief of police is a bar to the prosecution. In McLean on Criminal Law,§ 118, it is said "A question analogous to that discussed in the preceding section, and yet depending for its solution on somewhat different principles, is as to whether one who has been decoyed into a criminal act for the purpose of securing his detection and punishment is relieved from criminal liability by that fact. It is sometimes suggested that it is very improper and unworthy conduct on the part of prosecuting officers to induce men to be criminals for the purpose of securing their conviction, and such conduct has been criticised; but it is a well-settled principle that the wrongful acts of officers of the state in connection with a prosecution will not be imputed to the state so as to excuse the defendant from criminal liability for what he actually does."

City of Evanston v. Myers, 172 Ill. 266, 50 N.E 204, is directly in point. "A driver of a beer wagon who sells beer in violation of a city ordinance is liable to punishment, though the city furnished the money and employed the purchaser as a detective to discover violations of the ordinance, where no fraud or deceit was used in the purchase or any inducement offered than a willingness to buy." In Rater v. State, 49 Ind. 508, it is held that "the fact that a party was deceived into violation of the law by one who was employed as a detective will not be a justification." In People v. Rush, 113 Mich. 539, 71 N.W. 863, it is held: "The fact that a witness to whom an unlawful sale of liquor was made was employed by the prosecuting attorney as a detective with a view to respondent's prosecution is no...