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114 N.C. 780

18 S.E 971

State v. . Hill

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided February 5, 1894

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1894-02-05

INDICTMENT for larceny, tried at Fall Term, 1893, of Bertie Superior Court, before Bynum, J., and a jury. It appeared on the trial that the defendant took some meat from a store to a cart belonging to Godwin, but to which his own oxen were hitched. Pie claimed that Charles Godwin asked him to cany out the meat, which Godwin said was bis. • The meat was discovered under the shucks in the cart.

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently January 1926

1 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1894-02-05

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Aveky, J.:

¶1 Secrecy is usually a part of the evidence of á felonious intent, but it is not an essential accompaniment so as to make it incumbent on the State to show an attempt to conceal the taking in every instance. State v. Powell, 103 N. C., 424; State v. Fisher, 70 N. C., 78. In the most favorable aspect of the testimony as to the manner of taking and carrying the meat out of the store, the question of the intent of the defendant was one for the jury, and whether he went out of the store carrying it in front of him or under his overcoat, it was proper for the Court below to leave the *783 jury to determine whether it was taken to the wagon at the request of Charles Godwin, and under the belief that God-win had bought it, or whether it was the purpose of the defendant to deprive the true owner of it and convert it to his own use.

¶2 If the Solicitor abused his privilege, as counsel for the State, in his comments in reference to the color of the defendant, it was not such an extreme case as to take it out of the general and well-established rule that the Court may either stop counsel at the time or caution the jury in its charge not to be influenced by the remarks complained of. Greenlee v. Greenlee, 93 N. C., 278 ; State v. Bryan, 89 N. C., 531; Kerchner v. McRae, 80 N. C., 219; State v. Weddington, 103 N. C., 364; Hudson v. Jordan, 108 N. C., 10. We must not be understood as holding that as a reply to what had been said by the defendant’s counsel the remarks of the Solicitor upon this subject were not within the line of fair and legitimate debate. There was No Error.

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