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48 N.C. 375

State v. . Headrick

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided June 5, 1856

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1856-06-05

This was an indictment for removing a fence, under tbe Act of Assembly of 1846, Eev. Code ch. 34, sec. 103, tried before his Honor, Judge Dick, at the last Superior Court of Davidson County. The defendant being the lessee of a field for a term of years, built a fence near the dividing line, between his land and the land of the prosecutor, which was then under cultivation, but entirely on his own premises.

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently March 1927

1 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1856-06-05

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Battle, J.

¶1 The present indictment is framed upon the 103d section of the 34th chapter of the Eevised Code, which enacts that, If any person shall unlawfully and wilfully burn, destroy, pull down, inj are or remove any fence, wall or other enclosure, or any part thereof surrounding or about any yard, garden cultivated field, or pasture,” he shall be deemed to be guilty of a misdemeanor. The special verdict states, *376 that the part of the fence, for the taking away of which the defendant was indicted, was “ unlawfully and without license” put upon his land by the prosecutor. How it would be unlawful for the defendant to remove this obstruction from his own land, we are unable to conceive. If the prosecutor sustained any damage, it was in consequence of his own wrongful act, and he cannot make the defendant criminally responsible for it. “To subject a person to the penalties of the Act in question, he must be guilty of trespass,” of which the defendant in the present case, certainly was not. State v. Williams, Busb. Rep. 197. The judgment must be affirmed.

Pee Cueiam.

¶2 Judgment affirmed.

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