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115 N.C. 712

20 S.E 623

State v. . Hawkins

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided September 5, 1894

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1894-09-05

Indictment for perjury, tried before Bynum, J, at September Term, 1894, of Wake Superior Court.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1894-09-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1966

4 state decisions

2018941900191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Burwell, J.:

¶1 The testimony shows that when the defendant made in the Mayor’s Court the statement which is alleged to have been false, he was not being examined under the provisions of section 1145 of The Code, but was testifying in his own behalf and of his own accord, and at the suggestion of his own counsel, then present. He had a right so to testify. The Code, section 1353. If he saw fit to exercise that right, as it seems he did, he is to be treated just as any other witness.

¶2 2. There was the testimony of one witness (Curtis) that the oath of the defendant was false. To prove its falsity it was necessary to supplement this either by the evidence of another like witness, or else by proof of corroborative circumstances sufficient to turn the scale against the defendant’s oath. State v. Gales, 107 N. C., 832.

¶3 We think the evidence of Dr. Scruggs as to the nature of the wofind furnished such corroboration. He said that it *716 “ was made with a sharp-edged instrument.” An axe, though sucha one as the witness Curtis described,is “a sharp-edged instrument within the meaning of those words as used by the witness. No Error.

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