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85 N.C. 508

State v. . Martin

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided October 5, 1881

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1881-10-05

Indictment for an assau-lfc with a deadly weapon, tried at Fall Term,- 1881, of Bukke Superior Court, before Seymour, J, The state introduced one W. E. Powe as a witness, who testified that as he was on a sidewalk of a street in the town of Morganton (near the store of one Brittain) the defendant who was on the other side of the street some twenty steps distant, commenced cursing him, and told him he intended to cut his throat and kill him.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1881-10-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently January 2007

10 state decisions

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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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•Ashe, J.

¶1 The principle governing this case has been decided by several adjudications on the subject by this court. The principle is, that no man by the show of violence has the right to put another in fear and thereby force him .to leave a place where he has the right to be. In the case of State v. Shipman, 81 N. C., 513, the defendant after using threatening language with' reference to the prosecutor and in his hearing, advanced upon him wdth a knife, continuing the use of violent and menacing expressions. The evidence left it doubtful as to whether or not the knife was open, and when the defendant got within five or six feet of the prosecutor, the latter said, “ I shall have to go away,” and withdrew from the work upon which he was engaged. It was held that the defendant was properly convicted of an assault. And in State v. Rawles, 65 N. C., 334, it has been decided that if a person be at a place where he has a right to *511 be, and four other persons with a pitchfork, gun, &c., by following him, and using threatening and insulting language put him in fear, and induced him to go home sooner than, or in a different way from the one he would otherwise have gone, the four are guilty of an assault, although they do not get nearer- than seventy-five yards, and do not take the weapons from their shoulders. See also State v. Hampton, 63 N. C., 13; State v. Church, 63 N. C., 15.

¶2 There is no error. Let this be certified to the superior court of Burke county, that further proceedings be had according to this opinion and the law.

¶3 No error. Affirmed.

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