State v. Woolard

• Decision Date: 17 September 1947
• Docket Number: 1
• Citation: 44 S.E.2d 29,227 N.C. 645
• Parties: STATE v. WOOLARD.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

44 S.E.2d 29

227 N.C. 645

STATE v. WOOLARD.

No. 1

Supreme Court of North Carolina

September 17, 1947

Criminal prosecution upon bill of indictment charging that the defendant did unlawfully, wilfully, and feloniously carnally know and abuse a certain named female child over twelve and under sixteen years of age, etc.

Defendant pleaded not guilty.

The record discloses that on the trial below after the prosecutrix as witness for the State had testified to facts tending to support the charge against defendant, he, through cross-examination by his counsel, sought to impeach the truthfulness of her testimony; that at the conclusion of her examination as a witness, the court made the following remark: 'Mr. Sheriff, you'll have to keep that crowd quiet--you people cannot laugh at the predicament of this poor little girl; the only difference between you and she is that you haven't been caught'; and that this remark was made three times during the course of the trial. Exception by defendant.

The defendant did not offer himself as a witness.

There was a verdict of guilty. And from judgment, sentencing defendant to two years on the roads, he appeals to Supreme Court and assigns error.

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

LeRoy Scott and John A. Mayo, both of Washington, for defendant appellant.

WINBORNE Justice.

Among the errors assigned by defendant on this appeal the one directed to the remarks made by the presiding judge in the course of the trial and in the presence of the jury, as above recited, is well taken and must be held to be prejudicial error. The apparent effect of these remarks is twofold: (1) They tend to invoke sympathy for the prosecuting witness, and thereby bolster her testimony; and (2) they tend to impair the effect of defendant's plea of not guilty. Thus they constitute a violation of the provisions of G.S. s 1-180 forbidding a judge to express to the jury his opinion on facts of the case being tried.

Decisions of this Court, uniformly, are to the effect that 'the slightest intimation from a judge as to the strength of the evidence, or as to the credibility of the witness will always have great weight with the jury; and therefore we must be careful to see that neither party is unduly prejudiced by any expression from the bench, which is likely to prevent a fair and impartial trial. ' Walker, J.,...