This was an indictment for an assault and battery on one' George W. Daughtry. On the trial it appeared there had been a political wrangle between Daughtry and a company assembled at a vendue in Johston county, which was continued into the twilight of the evening, until nearly dark. At that time, while Daughtry and one of his friends were engaged in conversation apart from the assembly, some one from behind struck Daughtry three blows with a knife, two of which wounded him.
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1843-06-05
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently November 1995
6 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.
¶1
The testimony, to which the defendant has excepted, is not liable to the objection that it is “hearsay evidence.” It was not offered to establish the
truth
of what the defendant’s father had said, but simply to prove the fact, that he made such a declaration. If that fact became material or relevant in the enquiry before the jury, certainly testimony of the fact was proper. Now we cannot say that the fact was altogether immaterial or irrelevant. The assault upon the prosecutor followed soon after his declaration, that no honest man would avail himself of the bankrupt law, and such a declaration was likely to provoke to resentment the son of one thus publickly branded as dishonest. We think the State had a right to shew this circumstance as tending to point out the individual, who took fire at this remark, and wreaked his vengeance on the person who made it. The circumstance
per se
would be exceedingly weak, but in connexion with the other evidence-in the case, it was entitled to some regard.
¶2
This opinion must be transmitted to the Superior Court of Johnston, with directions to proceed to sentence against
*506
t|ie prisoner agreeably to the decision of this court and the law of the land.
