State v. . Norwood

74 N.C. 247

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: January 5, 1876
• Status: Published

Opinion

PeaRSON, C. J.

We have given to the elaborate argument of the counsel for the defendant full consideration, and do not, by the aid of it, see in the charge, or in the manner of submitting the case to the jury, any error of which the defendant has a right to complain.

The propriety of the allusion by the Solicitor to the fact, that the prosecutor was a' colored man and the defendant a white man, depends on the incidents and surroundings of the trial, which are not set out in the statement of the case. But the defendant has no ground on which to complain of the charge, for his Honor holds the scales of justice even.

Indeed, it may be thought that his Honor leaned to the side of the defendant in order to meet a prejudice against a white man who would steal from a negro. Although the crime of stealing admits of no degrees of comparison as “mean, meaner, meanest,” it may be that by reason of prejudice, in the county of Granville, a white man who steals from a negro is mean in an extra superlative degree. But of this, we are are not informed by the record.

No error. Certified.

Per Curiam. Judgment affirmed.