34 S.E.2d 205 | N.C. | 1945
Criminal prosecution tried upon indictment charging the prisoner with the murder of one Elder Phifer.
The record discloses that the deceased was a girl about seventeen years of age. The defendant had been keeping company with her and had become jealous of her attentions to others, or angered because of her coolness to him, and had threatened to take her life. On Saturday night, 21 October, 1944, between 9 and 10 o'clock, the defendant saw the deceased at a cafe in company with another girl and a boy. He called to her, but she refused his attentions and went into the cafe. The defendant then went to his rooming-house and obtained a shotgun belonging to another occupant of the same house and returned to the cafe. Not finding the deceased there, he took a taxi and went to another cafe, about two and a half miles away, where he stayed until it closed around midnight; then he went to a cotton patch near the home of the deceased and lay in wait for her. As she approached, between 12 and 1 o'clock, the *355 defendant came from the cotton patch out into the road, and shot and killed her. The defendant then carried the gun back to its owner, said that he had shot the deceased, and asked that the police be notified where he could be found.
On the following day, after his arrest, the defendant made a statement to the officers and recited the facts substantially as above.
The defendant offered no evidence.
Verdict: "We, the jury, find Clarence Lord, the defendant, guilty of murder in the first degree. The jury wishes to announce to the court that we asked for Divine guidance before our deliberation."
Judgment: Death by asphyxiation.
The defendant appeals, assigning errors.
The case presents little more than an issue of fact, determinable alone by the jury. The evidence amply supports the verdict. S. v. Satterfield,
The first assignment of error seeks to raise the question of jury defect and bias, but the exceptions upon which it is based hardly suffice for the purpose. S. v. Levy,
The statement made by the defendant to the officers in the nature of a confession was found by the court to have been voluntarily made. This rendered it admissible in evidence. S. v. Biggs,
The record is free from reversible error. Hence, the verdict and judgment will be upheld.
No error.