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266 N.C. 753

147 S.E.2d 180

State v. Malpass

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided March 23, 1966

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1966-03-23

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Such proof, of course, would demolish an alibi.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Caddell

Relies on State v. Wilson · State v. Spencer

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1966-03-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently May 1980

16 state decisions

130196619701980decided

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 →

PeR CuRiam.

¶1 Defendants’ only assignment of error is “that the Trial Court erred in failing to instruct the jury more fully as to the defendants’ defense of alibi, and further, in failing to apply the law’ of alibi- to the facts adduced in evidence of this case.” This assignment of error fails to comply with the rules of this Court. “An assignment based on failure to charge should set out the defendant’s contention as to what the court should have charged.” State v. Wilson, 263 N.C. 533, 534, 139 S.E. 2d 736, 737. Notwithstanding, we have examined the charge in its entirety and find that the judge instructed the jury in accordance with the rule laid down in State v. Spencer, 256 N.C. 487, 489, 124 S.E. 2d 175, 177. An alibi is simply a defendant’s plea or assertion that at the time the crime charged was perpetrated he was at another place and therefore could not have committed the crime. As the court fully explained to the jury, in order to convict either defendant of the robbery charged, the State was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was present at the time and place it occurred and that he participated in it. Such proof, of course, would demolish an alibi. The evidence in this case was simple; the issue, clear-cut. Did either one, or both, of the defendants perpetrate the crime, or was the robbery victim mistaken in his identification? The jury could not have been misled or confused by the charge.

¶2 No error.

MooRE, J., not sitting.
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