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265 N.C. 388

144 S.E.2d 49

State v. Squires

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided September 29, 1965

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1965-09-29

Relies on Costello v. United States · State v. . Levy

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1965-09-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently December 1981

3 federal appellate · 10 state decisions

70196519701980decided

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 →

Pee Cueiam.

¶1 Upon arraignment, counsel questioned the mental capacity of the defendant to plead to the indictment and to conduct his defense. Pursuant to court order he was committed to Dorothea Dix Hospital for observation. At the end of the examination period the authorities certified the defendant was mentally competent to stand trial.

¶2 The record discloses: “On calling the case for trial the defendant, through counsel, Charles L. Abernethy, Jr., enters a plea of not guilty *389 and moves to quash the bill of indictment.” Disregarding the question whether the motion to quash was timely made (after plea) the reason assigned (hearsay testimony before the grand jury) was insufficient to invalidate the indictment. Costello v. U. S., 350 U.S. 359, 100 L. Ed. 397. The court, after inquiry, overruled defendant’s challenge to the competency of the prosecuting witness to testify. The court’s finding of competency was warranted by the showing made and hence is conclusive. State v. Levy, 200 N.C. 586, 158 S.E. 94.

¶3 The questions presented and argued here, as well as the face of the record, disclose that in the trial there was

¶4 No error.

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