State v. Spruill

• Decision Date: 21 September 1938
• Docket Number: 1.
• Parties: STATE v. SPRUILL et al.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

198 S.E. 611

214 N.C. 123

STATE v. SPRUILL et al.

No. 1.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

September 21, 1938

Appeal from Superior Court, Tyrrell County; C. E. Thompson, Judge.

Jimmie Spruill was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and he appeals.

Reversed.

In prosecution of truck owner and driver for involuntary manslaughter arising out of death of third person when automobile in which he was riding was struck by truck evidence on question of truck owner's guilt was insufficient for jury.

The defendants Spruill and Alexander were charged with the involuntary manslaughter of one Luther McClees. The jury acquitted the defendant Alexander and found the defendant Spruill guilty and from judgment imposing sentence defendant Spruill appealed.

W. L Whitley, of Plymouth, for appellant.

Harry McMullan, Atty. Gen., and T. W. Bruton and Robert H. Wettach Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.

DEVIN Justice.

The appellant assigns as error the denial of his motion for judgment as of nonsuit, entered at the close of the State's evidence and renewed at the close of all the evidence.

The facts as disclosed by the record may be briefly summarized as follows:

The deceased Luther McClees, riding with others in a cart on the road near the town of Columbia, North Carolina, was struck by a motor truck and received injuries from which he shortly thereafter died. There was circumstantial evidence tending to show that the truck involved in the collision belonged to defendant Spruill, that it was at the time being driven by defendant Alexander, and that Spruill was in the truck and under the influence of intoxicating liquor.

There was also evidence from which the inference was permissible that the injury and death of deceased resulted from negligence in the operation of the motor truck. All the evidence tended to show that at the time of the accident the truck was being driven by the defendant Alexander, and that defendant Spruill at no time had his hand on the steering wheel or exercised any control over the operation of the truck. It also appeared that Alexander had driven the truck from the home of defendant Spruill to Columbia and beyond, along the road where the deceased was struck, by the permission of defendant Spruill, in order that the defendant Alexander might attend to certain business of his own, and that defendant Spruill was in the truck and too much under the influence of liquor to drive. There was no evidence that the defendant Alexander, prior to, or at the time of, the collision, had been drinking, though it was testified that subsequent to the collision he became intoxicated.

Both defendants were tried in the Recorder's Court of Tyrrell County on the charge of operating a motor vehicle on the highway while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and both were acquitted. On the trial in the Superior Court on the charge of...