79 S.E. 953 | N.C. | 1913
We have given careful consideration to the entire record, and find no error in the proceedings in the Superior Court. The motion for a continuance was addressed to the discretion of the court, and the ruling of his Honor, denying the motion, is not reviewable, unless there has been an abuse of discretion, and we find none.
The killing was on the streets of Durham, in the daytime, in the presence of several witnesses, and immediately before the shooting the prisoner was at the home of Agnes Leathers, and just after was at his own home with his wife.
No evidence was offered by the prisoner, and nothing was developed upon the examination of the witnesses for the State indicating that the prisoner was not in full possession of his faculties.
His Honor was, therefore, fully justified in concluding that, if the prisoner was under the influence of cocaine at the time of the killing, as he alleged, he could prove the fact by other witnesses, and that he was not dependent upon the evidence of Bud Cain, a fugitive from justice, who might never return.
There was, in our opinion, sufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation to sustain a conviction of murder in the first degree.
The absence of provocation, the preparation of a deadly weapon, the language used before the killing, "I am talking to you, damn you; I don't like you, nohow, and what it takes to kill you, I got it," and after, *376 "that he wished he had got one more damn shot at the Dunnegan nigger," are circumstances tending to prove premeditation and deliberation, fit to be considered by the jury, and this evidence was submitted to them in a clear charge, which fully protected the rights of the prisoner.
In S. v. McCormac,
This case has been approved in S. v. Lipscomb,
No error.
Cited: S. v. McClure,
(471)