Indictment for larceny, tried at Spring Term, 1894, of YadkiN Superior Court, before Battle, J., and a jury. The evidence on which the State relied was entirely circumstantial. Counsel for the defendant, in addressing the jury, said it had been laid down as a rule governing circumstantial, evidence that the proof must be as convincing as if one credible eye-witness had testified to the facts.
Decided 1894-09-05
Shepherd, C. J.:
¶1
The evidence in this case was circumstantial, and the defendants except to the instructions of his Plonor on the ground that he failed “to lay down to the jury, as a rule of law, that the strength of circumstantial evidence must be equal to the strength of the testimony of one credible eye-witness.” This very point was raised in
State
v.
Norwood,
74 N. C., 247, and overruled by the Court. This ruling is referred to and approved in
State
v.
Gee,
92 N. C., 756, and cannot be regarded as an open question in this State. His Honor’s charge as to the intensity of proof, is well sustained by the foregoing authorities.
