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272 N.C. 526

158 S.E.2d 334

State v. Watson

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided January 12, 1968

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1968-01-12

Relies on State v. . Jackson · State v. Stinson · State v. Brown

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1968-01-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently March 2016

21 state decisions

70196819701980199020002010decided

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.

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Per Curiam.

¶1 The defendant’s motion for judgment as of non-suit, made at the conclusion of the State’s evidence and renewed at the conclusion of all the evidence, should have been granted. The indictment charged that the defendant forced .open “a safe of R. C. H. Harriss.” The State’s evidence shows that the cabinet forced open on the occasion in question was the property of Harriss-Conners Chevrolet, Inc. This was a fatal' variance between the offense charged in the indictment and the proof. State v. Brown, 263 N.C. 786, 140 S.E. 2d 413; State v. Stinson, 263 N.C. 283, 139 S.E. 2d 558. “It is a rule of universal observance in the administration of criminal law that a defendant must be convicted, if convicted at all, of the particular offense charged in the bill of indictment. The allegation and proof must correspond.” State v. Jackson, 218 N.C. 373, 11 S.E. 2d 149. “In indictments for injuries to property it is necessary to lay the property truly, and a variance in that respect is fatal.” State v. Mason, 35 N.C. 341.

¶2 Since the judgment below must be reversed because of the above mentioned variance between the indictment and the proof, it is unnecessary for us to consider, and we do not express any opinion upon, the defendant’s further contention that the file cabinet shown to have been broken open was not a “safe” within the meaning of G.S. 14-89.1.

¶3 The solicitor may, if so advised, present another bill of indictment correctly alleging the ownership of the container which he contends was forced open in violation of the above statute.

¶4 Reversed.

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