Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

173 N.C. 759

92 S.E 147

State v. . Greer

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided April 18, 1917

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1917-04-18

CeimiNal action, tried before Stacy, J., at October Term, 1916, of Forsyth. Tbis is an appeal by Mary Greer, wbo was convicted in the municipal court of the city of Winston on 7 June, 1916, for retailing, the sale being made to one Henry Lemons. The judgment of the court was that the defendant pay a fine of $25 and costs and be imprisoned in the county jail for six months.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“When judgment is suspended in a criminal action upon good behavior, or other conditions, the proceedings to ascertain whether the terms have been complied with are addressed to the reasonable discretion of the judge of the court, and do not come within the jury's province. The findings of the judge, and his judgment upon them, are not reviewable upon appeal unless there is a manifest abuse of such discretion.”

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

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1917-04-18

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently October 1986

11 state decisions

2019171920193019401950196019701980decided

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 →

Bbowst, J.

¶1 The question of whether there was technically a suspension of the judgment or a suspension of the execution cannot affect the result of this case. The defendant contends that it was a suspended judgment, and if we adopt her contention we have many authorities to the effect that trial judges have the power to suspend judgments upon certain conditions, and to later give them effect upon the breach of condition. S. v. Hilton, 151 N. C., 687; S. v. Sanders, 153 N. C., 624; S. v. Everitt, 164 N. C., 399; S. v. Tripp, 168 N. C., 150.

¶2 The verdict of the jury acquitting the defendant of the sale to Millard Creech was not binding on the judge of the municipal court. It was his right to find the facts in respect to that matter according to his own convictions upon the evidence before him, and not according to the evidence before the jury in Superior Court.

¶3 When judgment is suspended in a criminal action upon good behavior, or other conditions, the proceedings to .ascertain whether the terms have been complied with are addressed to the reasonable discretion of the judge of the court, and do not come within the jury’s-province.

¶4*761 The findings of the judge and his judgment upon them are not reviewable upon appeal unless there is a manifest abuse of such discretion. S. v. Everitt, supra.

¶5 Affirmed.

/173/nc/759 · .json · Public domain