State v. Stansell

• Decision Date: 15 June 1932
• Docket Number: 588.
• Citation: 164 S.E. 580,203 N.C. 69
• Parties: STATE v. STANSELL.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

164 S.E. 580

203 N.C. 69

STATE v. STANSELL.

No. 588.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

June 15, 1932

Appeal from Superior Court, Buncombe County; Stack, Judge.

R. H Stansell was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals.

New trial.

The defendant was indicted for the murder of Ann Smith, her death resulting from the collision of automobiles on a highway, but he was prosecuted only on a charge of manslaughter. He was convicted of manslaughter, and from the judgment pronounced he appealed upon assigned error.

The state's evidence tended to establish the following circumstances: The collision occurred a mile or more from Asheville on the highway between Asheville and Hendersonville. Earle Campbell, Joe McCormick, Miss Plemmons and Mrs. Smith were in a Plymouth coupé, which had only one seat. McCormick was driving, the deceased at his side Campbell at her right with the Plemmons girl in his lap. At 10:30 at night they left Asheville going in the direction of Hendersonville --"just driving around." Their speed was between thirty and thirty-five miles an hour, and they were on the right side of the road. They heard the defendant's car, an Oldsmobile, coming from the direction of Hendersonville traveling at the rate of fifty or sixty miles an hour. McCormick turned to the right, the right front wheel of the coupé being off the pavement. The defendant's car struck the coupé at or near the left door, turned it over, and stopped thirty-five steps away. The door flew open, Campbell and the Plemmons girl fell out, and McCormick and the deceased were thrown out. The deceased lived twenty or thirty minutes after the collision.

The paved part of the road is twenty feet in width with a black line in the middle. A wheel of the defendant's car broke down, and there was a "scratched mark on the pavement" on the defendant's left side of the black mark.

For the defendant there was evidence tending to show that the facts were as follows: He was returning from Greenville, S. C., to Asheville with his wife and baby. The lights of the coupé were apparently on his side of the road and his car was on the right side of the line. The cars came together; one of the front wheels of the defendant's car came off, the brakes were knocked loose, and the car made a quick swerve to the left, causing the "scratch" on the road. He was not driving more than thirty-five miles an hour; the coupé was running "quite fast." He pulled as far to the right as he could without going into the ditch, and after the impact was unable to stop his car because the brakes had been broken.

There was evidence that McCormick "acted like a man that was drunk," and that he and Campbell had been convicted of a breach of the liquor law; also that the defendant did not seem to be normal.

Charles D. MacRae, Johnston & Horner, and Robert R. Reynolds, all of Asheville, for appellant.

Dennis G. Brummitt, Atty. Gen., and A. A. F. Seawell, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

ADAMS J.

The common-law definition of involuntary manslaughter includes unintentional homicide resulting from the performance of an unlawful act, from the performance of a lawful act done in a culpably negligent manner, and from the negligent failure to perform a legal duty. State v. Satterfield, 198 N.C. 682, 153 S.E. 155. The definition is material in its bearing upon the criminal responsibility of a person who kills another in the breach of a statute intended and designed to prevent the infliction of personal injury, as may be seen by reference to some of the more recent decisions.

The case of State v. Tankersley, 172 N.C. 955, 90 S.E. 781, L. R. A. 1917C, 533, presented the question of liability for involuntary manslaughter at common law--unintentional homicide following a negligent omission of duty. In that case it was said that, in order to hold one a criminal, there must be a higher degree of negligence than is required to establish negligent default on a mere civil issue, and that, in order to a conviction of involuntary manslaughter, attributable to a negligent omission of duty, when engaged in a lawful act, it must be shown that a homicide was not improbable under all the facts existent at the time and which should reasonably have an influence and effect on the conduct of the person charged.

The law of involuntary manslaughter has been applied to cases in which injury or death resulted from the collision of motor vehicles operated in violation of a statute designed to secure personal safety. One of the first is State v. McIver, 175 N.C. 761, 94 S.E. 682. It is there held that, if the act is a violation of a statute intended and designed to prevent injury to the person and is in itself dangerous, and death ensues, the person violating the statute is guilty of manslaughter, and that, while the negligence must be something more than is required in a civil action, the question of liability should be submitted to a jury in a criminal prosecution if the negligent act was likely to produce death or great bodily harm.

In State v. Gray, 180 N.C. 697, 104 S.E. 647, 649, it is said: "The principle is generally stated in the text-books that, 'if one person causes the death of another by an act which is in violation of law it will be manslaughter, although not shown to be willful or intentional' (McClain Cr. L. vol. 1, § 347), or that when life has been taken in the perpetration of any wrongful or unlawful act, the slayer will be deemed guilty of one of the grades of culpable homicide, notwithstanding the fact that death was unintentional and collateral to the act done (13 R C. L. 843); but on closer examination of the authorities it will be seen that the responsibility for a death is sometimes made to depend on whether the unlawful act is malum in se or malum prohibitum, a distinction noted and discussed in State v. Horton, 139 N.C. 588, 51 S.E. 945, 1 L. R. A. (N. S.) 991, 111 Am. St. Rep. 818 . It is, however, practically agreed, without regard to this distinction, that if the act is a violation of a statute intended and designed to prevent injury to the person, and is in itself dangerous, and death ensues, the person violating the statute is guilty of manslaughter at least, and under some circumstances of murder. The principle is recognized in State v. Horton, supra, and in State v. Turnage, 138 N.C. 569, 49 S.E. 913; State v. Limerick, 146 N.C. 650, 61 S.E. 568, and State v. Trollinger, 162 N.C. 620, 77 S.E. 957,...