INDICTMENT against Plummer Hicks, beard by Judge E. W. Timberlake and a jury, at Fall Team, 1901, of tbe Superior C'ourt of Vance County. Grant Hall, á witness for tbe State testified: “I am a carpenter and live at Kittrell’s, about balf a mile from where Robert C'rudupi was sbot; beard gun on nigbt of shooting at quarter to nine o’clock. It was Sunday nigbt, June 30,1901. Soon after bearing gun I went to Moses Link’s and found Robert Crudup dead.
Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently May 1903
1 state decisions
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
¶1
The prisoner was tried upon a bill of indictment for murder and convicted of murder in the first degree. No evidence was offered on his behalf, nor was there any exception to that introduced by the State. The exception taken, upon which the appeal is based, is to' the refusal of the Court to give, first, the special instructions prayed for, and, second, “to the charge as given.” The second' is a broadside exception and not entitled to be considered under the rules and decisions of this Court.
State v.
McDuffie, 107 N. C., 885, and numerous other cases. But as a human life is at
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stabs we have carefully perused tb'e charge of bis Honor as given to the jury and find it to be without fault. The instructions prayed for were substantially given by the Court;except such parts thereof as were not supported by any evidence, and to1 charge that “upon the whole testimony it is the duty of the jury to render a verdict of not guilty,” and in so refusing there was no error. There was abundant evidence to sustain the charge in the bill of indictment. The Judge is not required to give instructions in the very words in which they are asked, and when the charge substantially embraces' the proper instructions prayed for, it is no ground for a new trial.
State v.
Anderson, 92 N. C., 732;
State v.
Brewer, 98 N. C., 607;
State v.
Massey, 65 N. C., 480;
State v.
Neville, 51 N. C., 423;
State v.
Brantley, 63 N. C., 518;
State v.
Booker, 123 N. C., on page 725, and other cases there cited.
¶2
All of the material and proper parts of the instructions asked to be given by the counsel of prisoner appear to have been fully and explicitly given. In the charge his Honor made no allusion to the “bias of hostile witnesses,” nor to> the degree of scrutiny to> be given to the evidence of such witnesses, as contended for in the prayer for instructions, and he refused to charge that it would be murder in the second degree only if the prisoner “saw deceased in company with a woman whom he supposed to be his wife, who> had deserted him and become angered thereby, and in a sudden fury slew deceased.”' In failing and refusing to so charge, we see no error, for the ’record contains no evidence to show that the witnesses were biased, or that the prisoner supposed that the deceased, Robert Crudup, was in company with a woman ■whom he supposed to be his wife. While it is possible, and, from the circumstances of the homicide as testified to, may be probable that prisoner supposed such to he the fact, yet there is no evidence to support such a contention; and it is held in
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State v. McDuffie, supra,
that it is “not error to refuse a charge, however correct in law, which there was noi evidence to support.” The burden of the proof was to identify the prisoner as being the man who slew the deceased. No excuse or evidence in mitigation, or evidence of any kind, was offered on behalf of prisoner, nor was such shown from the evidence of the State.
