State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 13 October 1948
• Docket Number: No. 221-A.,221-A.
• Citation: 49 S.E.2d 617,229 N.C. 348
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE. v. WILLIAMS et al.

229 N.C. 348

49 S.E.2d 617

STATE.

v.WILLIAMS et al.

No. 221-A.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Oct. 13, 1948.

Appeal from Superior Court, Lee County; Clawson L. Williams, Judge.

Annie Williams and others were charged with an offense, named defendant was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to the felony of murder, and she appeals.

Judgment reversed.

The defendants were indicted for being accessories after the fact to the felony of the murder of Thompson Hooker by Bud Hicks. The indictment contained the specific allegation that the aid rendered to the principal offender, Bud Hicks, by the defendants consisted in transporting him from the scene of his crime for the purpose of enabling him to escape apprehension and punishment.

Testimony was presented at the trial by both the prosecution and the defense. This evidence is stated below in the light most favorable to the State.

On the afternoon of Sunday, June 6, 1948, Bud Hicks deliberately shot and wounded Thompson Hooker without provocation while the latter was standing before his doorstep at 404 Ramseur Street in Sanford. Immediately after the shooting, Hicks fled from Sanford to a rural section of Lee County in an automobile owned by himself and driven by the defendant, Prentiss Watson. Hicks and Watson were accompanied on this flight by the defendants, Annie Williams and Elizabeth Badgett. Peace officers found Hicks and his companions at the home of Annie Williams in a country neighborhood in Lee County at a later hour of the afternoon. Hicks, Watson, and Annie Williams thereupon sought unsuccessfully to dissuade the officers from arresting Hicks by falsely representing that Hicks had not been in Sanford anytime that day. After all these events had transpired, namely, on Monday, June 7, 1948, Thompson Hooker died in consequence of his gun-shot wound.

Elizabeth Badgett was acquitted, but the jury found Annie Williams and Prentiss Watson guilty as charged in the bill of indictment. Judgment was pronounced against both of these parties. Watson accepted his sentence, and Annie Williams appealed to this Court, assigning as error the denial of her motion for judgment of nonsuit made when the State rested its case and renewed when all the evidence was concluded.

Harry M. McMullan, Atty. Gen., and T. W. Bruton, Hughes J. Rhodes, and Ralph M. Moody, Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.

Neill McK. Salmon, of Lillington, for defendant, appellant.

ERVIN, Justice.

When the State prosecutes one upon the charge of being an accessory after the fact to the felony of murder, it assumes the burden of proving the three essential elements of the offense, namely: (1) That the principal felon had actually committed the felony of murder; (2) that the accused knew that such felony had been committed by the principal felon; and (3) that the accused received, relieved, comforted, or assisted the principal felon in some way in order to help him escape, or to hinder his arrest, trial, or punishment. State v. Potter, 221 N.C. 153, 19 S.E.2d 257; Wren v. Commonwealth, 26 Grat. 952, 67 Va. 952.

In the nature of things, one cannot become an accessory after the fact to a felony until such felony has become an accomplished fact. Consequently, it is well established in law that "one cannot be convicted as an accessory after the fact unless the felony be complete, and, until such...