State v. Hice

Decided September 15, 1895

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1895-09-15

This was a CRIMINAL aotioN, tried before Poyhin, J., and a jury, at Fall Term, 1891, of Caldwell Superior Court, for the crime of fornication and adultery. There was evidence offered on the part of the State tending to prove the guilt of both the defendants. The defendants were not offered as witnesses, and did not testify in their own behalf at the trial of the cause.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“In all cases a person accused of a crime of any grade, whether a felony or a misdemeanor, has a right to offer in his defense testimony of his good character. . . . This right is not dependent upon the defendant having been examined as a witness in his own behalf, and was recognized long before defendants were made competent to testify.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. . Huskins

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1895-09-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently December 2017

1 federal appellate · 7 state decisions

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.

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Clark, J.,

¶1“In all cases-a person accused of a crime of any grade, whether a felony or a misdemeanor, has a right to offer in his defense testimony of his good character.” State v. Henry , 50 N. C., 65; State v. Johnson, 60 N. C.. 151; State v. Laxton, 75 N. C., 216; 3 Am. & Eng. Enc., 111. This right is not dependent upon the defendant having been examined as a witness in his own behalf, and was recognized long before defendants were made competent to testify. It is limited to evidence of general character and opens the door, which would be otherwise closed, to the prosecution to show the defendant’s general bad character either by cross examination or by other witnesses. Bex v. Stannard, 7 Carr. & P., 673; 2 Hawkins P. C., Ch. 46, Sec. 194. In excluding the testimony there was error.

¶2Error.