State v. Tackett

• Decision Date: 31 December 1820
• Citation: 8 N.C. 210
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: THE STATE v. TACKETT.

8 N.C. 210

THE STATE

v.TACKETT.

SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA

DECEMBER TERM, 1820.

1. It is competent for one charged with the murder of a slave to give in evidence that the deceased was turbulent; that he was insolent and impudent to white persons.

2. The whole design of the act of 1817, "to punish the offense of killing a slave," was to make the homicide of a slave extenuated by a legal provocation, manslaughter, and to punish it as such; it does not go further and determine the degrees of the homicide, but leaves them to be ascertained by the common law.

3. At common law, and between white persons, a slight blow will not excuse a homicide, for that must be on mere necessity.

4. Nor will words extenuate it to manslaughter. But it is not correct to say "that a slight blow not threatening death or great bodily harm will not extenuate, if the weapon used by the slayer be a deadly

one," because that authorizes the inference that a blow to constitute a legal provocation must threaten death.

5. The true principle of the law is, that if he, on whom an assault is made with violence or circumstances of indignity, resent it immediately by killing the aggressor, and act therein in heat of blood and under that provocation, it is but manslaughter.

6. The general rule should therefore be laid down, "that words are not, but blows are a sufficient provocation to lessen the crime of homicide to manslaughter." From this there are a few cases which appear to be exceptions, but they depend on very particular circumstances.

7. But it exists in the very nature of slavery, that the relation between a white and a slave is different from that between free persons, and, therefore, many acts will extenuate the homicide of a slave which would not constitute a legal provocation if done by a white person.

THIS was an indictment for the murder of Daniel, a slave, from WAKE; and on the trial the evidence was that the deceased had a free colored woman for a wife, who lived on the lot of one Richardson, a carpenter, in Raleigh, and in a house near to that in which Richardson himself lived; that the deceased was generally there of nights; that the prisoner was a journeyman in the employment of Richardson, and lived in the house with him; that on the night when the deceased was shot, he (Richardson) had gone to sleep, and was awakened by the firing of agun, and soon after heard some person come into the room and set something down, like a gun, where his generally stood, and that he then turned over and saw a person going out, whom he thought to be the prisoner, and that in a short time he heard groans and complaints out of doors, as of one injured; that his gun had a buck load in it, and his family had been admonished not to use it; that Richardson saw no more of the prisoner that night, and that he did not sleep at home; that about a week or ten days before, the prisoner told Richardson of a fight between himself and the deceased on that day, and said that he would kill him, but the prisoner was drunk when he said so. In consequence of this threat, and of the rumor and belief that the prisoner kept the deceased's wife, Richardson discharged him, but took him back again in a few days, upon his promise to behave better. It was proved by other witnesses that the prisoner went to a house in the suburbs of the city about 9 o'clock of that night, to which he had before promised to go; that soon after he went in he said several times "that he was uneasy," and upon his being asked why, he said that he had been down town and got into an affray, and was afraid the constables would have hold of him; that soon afterwards he said that he had shot a man— a black man, belonging to Mr. Ruffin—and that he believed that

he spattered him well, for he took good sight at his legs and thighs, and the fellow hollowed. The prisoner then gave this account of the affair to the witnesses: that he had that night (which was very dark) been down town and was returning home the back way, through the lot, and found the deceased lying on his belly on the ground, at the window of the house in which the prisoner slept; and the prisoner said that he would then have blown out his brains if he had had a pistol; that he asked the deceased who he was and what he was doing there, to which the deceased replied only by asking who he was and what he was doing there; that the deceased then got up and told him that Richardson was not at home, and they then went into the yard together, where they remained a short while, andthe prisoner went into the house, took Richardson's gun and returned and shot the deceased while he was dodging around the turning lathe. The prisoner did not appear to be drunk, and asked permission to stay all night, and went to bed and seemed to be asleep when the constables came to arrest him; upon being taken, he remarked, without any previous communication of the charge against him, that it was hard to go out of a good warm bed to jail. In a short time after the deceased was wounded, some of the neighbors, alarmed by his groans, came to him, and a surgeon was sent for, who examined his body and found a very large mortal gunshot wound in the front and lower part of the abdomen. It was also proved that, two or three weeks before the homicide, the deceased had said to a witness that the prisoner kept his wife, and showed a large stick, with which he said that he had given the prisoner a beating, and that if the prisoner did not let his wife alone he would kill him; and that on another night, about a week or ten days before the homicide, the deceased was seen standing at Richardson's gate, and, upon being asked "who he was," said that he was not afraid to tell his name, that he was Daniel, and that the devil had been to pay there; that Richardson had whipped him and driven him off his lot, but he would be the death of Richardson or Tackett one. Another witness, who also was a carpenter and worked in Richardson's shop, further proved that, about ten days before the deceased came to his death, he came up to a work-bench where Tackett was working in the street, very near to Richardson's house; that the prisoner ordered him off, and the deceased said he was in the street and would not go; a fight then took place between them, but the witness did not see and could not tell how it began; when the witness took notice of them, the deceased had the stile of a window sash in his hand, and he struck the prisoner several times with it, and at one of the blows hurt his eye; and the deceased also caught hold of the adze which the prisoner took up to strike him with; they scuffled for it, the deceased butted the prisoner and finally succeeded in getting the adze from him and carried it off. This witness also stated that, very early in the morning of the next day or the day after, he found the deceased lying in wait in Richardson's garden, with two stones in his hands, and the deceased said that he thought the witness had been Tackett, and he had intended to knock his brains out; that after dinner of the day of the homicide he saw the...