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71 N.C. 85

State v. . Garrett

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided June 5, 1874

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1874-06-05

INDICTMENT, for murder, tried at Fall Term, 1873, of the Superior Court of Washington county, before his Honor, ■Judge Moore. The prisoners were charged with the murder of Alvina Garrett, a girl of fourteen years of age; on .the trial, Lucy •Stanley was acquitted.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1874-06-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently March 1967

20 state decisions — followed in 12 states

501874188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

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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ByNum, J.

¶1 The prisoner objected to the admissibility of the evidence as to the condition of her hand and relied upon the ease of the State v. Jacobs, 5 Jones, 259.

¶2 The distinction between that and our case is that in Jacobs'1 case, tl e prisoner himself, on trial, was compelled to exhibit himself to the jury, that they might see that he was within the prohibited degree of color, thus he was forced to become a witness against himself. This was held to be error.

¶3 In our case, not the prisoners, but the witnesses, were called to prove what they saw upon inspecting the prisoner’s hand, although that inspection was obtained by intimidation.

¶4 The prisoner had alleged that she had her hand burned in endeavoring to extinguish the fire upon the deceased, and at the Coroner’s inquest she carried her hand wrapped up in a handkerchief and thus concealed it from view.^éhe was made to unwrap and show her hand to the physician, which thus exposed, upon examination, showed no indication of a burn. It was evidently a fraud adopted to give countenance and support to her story, and the Coroner was justified in exposing a trick upon the public justice of the country.

¶5 The later cases are uniform to the point that a circumstance tending to show guilt may be proved, although it was brought to light by declaration, inadmissible, jpe»’ se, as having been obtained by improper influence. Arch. Orina. Pl., 131, and note by "Waterman, State v. Johnson, 67 N. C. Rep., 55. Familiar illustrations are where the accused is, by force, made to put his foot in a track, or allow the foot to be measured, where he is, by duress, compelled to produce stolen goods, or to disclose their hiding place, and they are there found. In these cases thq facts thus brought to light are competent evidence, though the declarations of the accused, made at the time, are excluded as having been obtained by improper influence.

¶6*88 We have carefully examined the whole reeord, and we find no defect therein.

¶7 There is no' error. This will be certified to the Court below that further proceedings be there had, according to law.

¶8 Pee Cueiam. Judgment affinned.

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