State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 20 December 1901 |
| Citation | 40 S.E. 84,129 N.C. 581 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. WILLIAMS. |
HOMICIDE—EVIDENCE—ADMISSIONS—QUESTION FOR JURY—OBJECTIONS—WAIVER.
1. An objection that there is no evidence to warrant a conviction is waived, if not made before verdict.
2. Though confessions sufficient to have warranted conviction of murder in the first degree were admitted, together with evidence of jealousy and threats, the court nevertheless properly submitted the case with instructions as to murder both in the first and second degrees; the question whether the evidence warranted a conviction in the first degree being for the jury
3. Evidence of admissions made by one defendant not in the presence of the other was properly admitted against the former, where the court charged that they could not be considered against the latter.
4. Admissions made by an accomplice out of court, and not in defendant's presence, though not admissible as substantive evidence against defendant, may he considered by the jury as affecting the credibility of the accomplice as a witness in the case.
Appeal from superior court, Montgomery county; Coble, Judge.
Dixie Williams was convicted of murder in the second degree, and appeals.
Affirmed.
Brown Shepherd, for the State.
The prisoner was convicted of murder in the second degree. After verdict he excepted because there was "no evidence to warrant a verdict for murder in the second degree." There was no prayer to that effect, and an exception that there was no evidence is waived if not asked before verdict State v. Harris, 120 N.' C. 577, 26 S. E. 774, and numerous cases there cited; Clark's Code (3d Ed.) p. 773; and other citations down to State v. Huggins, 126 N. C. 1055, 35 S. E. 606. There were confessions of the prisoner made to different persons which would have justified a conviction of murder in the first degree, with evidence of jealousy as a motive, and threats. There was no eyewitness of the killing. The killing being shown to have been done with a deadly weapon, and if the jury found that it was done by the prisoner, the law raised a presumption that it was murder in the second degree; and the jury may not have been satisfied, by the confessions and other evidence, of the circumstances necessary to raise the offense to murder in the first degree, and his honor properly left both aspects to the jury. Upon the evidence the jury might very well have found the prisoner guilty of murder in the first degree. The evidence...
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