{ "id": 8575974, "name": "STATE v. JAMES HOWARD ALLISON", "name_abbreviation": "State v. Allison", "decision_date": "1965-11-03", "docket_number": "", "first_page": "512", "last_page": "516", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "265 N.C. 512" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "N.C.", "id": 9292, "name": "Supreme Court of North Carolina" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 5, "name_long": "North Carolina", "name": "N.C." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "132 S.E. 2d 334", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "260 N.C. 177", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8573534 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "179" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/260/0177-01" ] }, { "cite": "93 S.E. 2d 431", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "244 N.C. 380", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 2219561 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/244/0380-01" ] }, { "cite": "93 S.E. 2d 155", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "244 N.C. 252", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 2219466 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/244/0252-01" ] }, { "cite": "146 S.E. 139", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "196 N.C. 524", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8628025 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/196/0524-01" ] }, { "cite": "144 S.E. 299", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "196 N.C. 1", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8622759 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/196/0001-01" ] }, { "cite": "45 S.E. 513", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "133 N.C. 656", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8659162 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/133/0656-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 544, "char_count": 10363, "ocr_confidence": 0.56, "pagerank": { "raw": 7.153716570352645e-07, "percentile": 0.9671747271752137 }, "sha256": "bfce37c9e77f0e170dc6123bb8ec9383a620af0e2b38960be4d1b5ca9872b60e", "simhash": "1:a8b1ae5b5cbab1b0", "word_count": 1762 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:31:16.118019+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "STATE v. JAMES HOWARD ALLISON." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Bobbitt, J.\nAppellant assigns as error (1) the denial of his motion for judgment as of nonsuit, and (2) the denial of his motion to set aside the verdict.\nThe evidence consists of that offered by the State and of the testimony of a witness offered by Steppe, to wit, Steppe\u2019s mother. Allison did not testify or offer evidence.\nThe State\u2019s evidence consists of the testimony of Joe Anderson, John Max Bradley, R. L. Sigmon, a State Highway Patrolman, and James Melvin, Davidson County Jailer, and of exhibits. This evidence tends to show the facts narrated below.\nJoe Anderson\u2019s store is located on N. C. Highway #16 in Lowes-ville in the eastern portion of Lincoln County. Joe Anderson owns the building and operates a general merchandise store therein. The store has a front door and a back door. About 7:00 p.m. on Friday, January 22, 1965, Joe Anderson in person closed his store, locking the front door and barring the back door. When he returned to the store about 7:00 a.m. the following morning, Saturday, January 23, 1965, he found the front door had been \u201cforced open\u201d and the back door \u201cwas just unbarred.\u201d Within the store there was \u201cgeneral confusion.\u201d The combination to his safe had been knocked off. Numerous articles of merchandise, of a value much in excess of $200.00, were missing. Shoes were among the articles missing.\nOn Friday, January 22, 1965, at the request of Allison, Allison, John Max Bradley and Donny Lee Bradley drove from Burlington, N. C. to Charlotte, N. C. in Donny Lee Bradley\u2019s blue and white 1957 Buick. There they met Steppe. The four \u201cgot something to eat\u201d at a Charlotte restaurant. Steppe had some \u201cpills\u201d and, while at the restaurant, the four started taking these pills, \u201caround 7 or 7:30 or 8, on Friday night, the 22nd of January.\u201d While the four were together in the restaurant, Donny Lee Bradley, the older brother (25) of John Max Bradley (16), was arrested and locked up for public drunkenness.\nAllison, Steppe and John Max Bradley (Bradley) left the restaurant and \u201cwent to a man\u2019s house in Charlotte.\u201d There Allison and Steppe got out, got a blanket with some tools in it and \u201cput them in the front seat on the front floor board.\u201d Bradley went to sleep. When he waked up Allison and Steppe \u201cwere fixing to turn off the highway.\u201d They turned off the highway and parked near a church. Bradley went with Allison and Steppe to the back of a store. Allison and Steppe carried the tools from the car. They instructed Bradley \u201cto tell them if any cars were coming.\u201d Bradley did not enter the store. Allison and Steppe went around to the front and thereafter came out the back door, bringing \u201csome stuff out in boxes.\u201d (According to Bradley, this store was in Lincoln County or Gaston County, \u201ccoming into Lincoln or going out of Lincoln.\u201d) Allison, Steppe and Bradley were at the store \u201cafter midnight.\u201d\nLeaving the store, Allison, Steppe and Bradley went to the house of one Bid Blackman in Charlotte. There Allison backed the car up to the garage and Allison and Steppe \u201cunloaded some stuff.\u201d Bradley was asleep and did not remember what occurred after the trip to Blackman\u2019s house until the car wreck in Davidson County. When the car wreck occurred, John Max Bradley, Donny Lee Bradley, Allison and Steppe were the occupants of the car.\nShortly after 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 23, 1965, R. L. Sig-mon went to the scene of a one-car wreck on U. S. Highway #29, about a mile south of Lexington, N. C. The car involved, \u201ca two-tone 1957 Buick,\u201d had gone off the left side of the lane for northbound traffic, down a 25-30 foot embankment and was stopped \u201ckind of at an angle into some trees.\u201d Allison was under the steering wheel. Steppe was in the front seat beside Allison. Donny Lee Bradley and John Max Bradley were in the back seat.\nThe trunk of the car contained a wide variety of articles of personal property. Among the articles in the trunk were shoe boxes containing new shoes, also empty shoe boxes. Each of the four occupants of the Buick had on a brand new pair of shoes. A shoe box containing a pair of new shoes (State\u2019s Exhibit #1), and another shoe box containing another pair of new shoes (State\u2019s Exhibit #2), and a box containing a tie and belt set (State\u2019s Exhibit #3), were taken from the trunk of the Buick. These boxes bore notations made thereon by Joe Anderson of the cost price or selling price or both of the merchandise therein. These boxes and contents had been a part of the stock of merchandise in Joe Anderson\u2019s store prior to January 23, 1965. Joe Anderson did not know Allison, Steppe or John Max Bradley and had never seen them in his store.\nDefendant\u2019s counsel contends that judgment as of nonsuit should have been entered because the State\u2019s case rests upon what he describes as \u201cthe unsupported, confused, indefinite, and self-contradictory testimony of an accomplice.\u201d However, defendant\u2019s conviction does not rest solely on the testimony of John Max Bradley. Indeed, John Max Bradley did not purport to know what store Allison and Steppe broke into and entered and stole merchandise from except the general location thereof and that entrance was made from the front and that merchandise was removed from the back. However, John Max Bradley\u2019s testimony is very significant and strengthens the State\u2019s case when considered along with the testimony of Joe Anderson, R. L. Sigmon and James Melvin.\nThere is ample evidence to support findings that Joe Anderson\u2019s store at Lowesville in Lincoln County was broken into and entered during the night of January 22-23 and that merchandise of a value much in excess of $200.00 was stolen therefrom and that a portion of such stolen merchandise was found in the possession of Allison and his associates about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 23rd, near Lexington in Davidson County. These facts are sufficient to invoke the following well-established legal principle: If and when it is established that a store has been broken into and entered and that merchandise has been stolen therefrom, the recent possession of such stolen merchandise raises presumptions of fact that the possessor is guilty of the larceny and of the breaking and entering. S. v. Hullen, 133 N.C. 656, 45 S.E. 513; S. v. White, 196 N.C. 1, 144 S.E. 299; S. v. Lambert, 196 N.C. 524, 146 S.E. 139; S. v. Neill, 244 N.C. 252, 93 S.E. 2d 155.\nThe State relied upon circumstantial evidence to identify Allison as one of the persons who committed the crimes charged in the two-count bill of indictment. After careful examination thereof in the light of the rule stated in S. v. Stephens, 244 N.C. 380, 93 S.E. 2d 431, and subsequent cases in accord therewith, the conclusion reached is that the evidence, when considered in the light most favorable to the State, S. v. Orr, 260 N.C. 177, 179, 132 S.E. 2d 334, was sufficient to require submission to the jury and to support the verdict.\nNo error.", "type": "majority", "author": "Bobbitt, J." } ], "attorneys": [ "Attorney General Bruton and Assistant Attorney General Bullock for the State.", "David Clark for defendant appellant." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "STATE v. JAMES HOWARD ALLISON.\n(Filed 3 November, 1965.)\n1. Burglary and Unlawful Breakings \u00a7 4; Larceny \u00a7 7\u2014\nEvidence tending to show that a store building was broken and entered at nighttime and goods taken therefrom, that some of the goods were found shortly thereafter in a car in which defendant and his companions were riding, together with testimony of an accomplice tending to show that the goods were taken by defendant and his companions after breaking and entering, held sufficient to overrule nonsuit.\n2. Burglary and Unlawful Breakings \u00a7 4; Larceny \u00a7 5\u2014\nWhen it is established that a store has been broken into and entered and that merchandise has been stolen therefrom, the possession of the stolen merchandise shortly after it had been stolen raises the presumptions of fact that the possessor is guilty of the larceny and of the breaking and entering.\n3. Criminal Law \u00a7 101\u2014\nCircumstantial evidence as to the identity of defendant as one of the persons who committed the crimes charged in the bill of indictment held sufficient to overrule nonsuit.\nAppeal by defendant from Farthing, J., May 1965 Session of LINCOLN.\nAppellant, James Howard Allison, was tried on a bill of indictment, containing two counts, to wit: first, feloniously breaking and entering a certain building \u201coccupied by one Joe Anderson\u2019s store\u201d; and second, larceny of described merchandise of the value of more than $200.00 \u201cof the goods and chattels and moneys of one Joe Anderson\u2019s store.\u201d The indictment alleges said criminal offenses were committed in Lincoln County, North Carolina, on the 23rd day of January 1965.\nEarl Edward Steppe and John Max Bradley, in separate bills of indictment, were charged with the same criminal offenses.\nJohn Max Bradley waived his right to counsel, entered a plea of guilty as charged, and testified as a State\u2019s witness. Allison (appellant), represented by W. H. Childs, Sr., Esq., court-appointed counsel, and Steppe, represented by Glen B. Ledford, Esq., an attorney from Charlotte, entered pleas of not guilty; and the Allison and Steppe cases were, by consent, consolidated for the purpose of trial.\nThe jury found both Allison and Steppe \u201cguilty as charged.\u201d Thereupon, separate judgments as to Allison and Steppe were pronounced. Steppe did not appeal.\nThe court, based on Allison\u2019s conviction on the first (breaking and entering) count, pronounced judgment imposing a prison sentence of not less than four nor more than nine years, with provisions that such sentence was to commence upon expiration of certain prior sentences; and, based on Allison\u2019s conviction on the second (larceny) count, the court, by and with the consent of Allison and his said counsel, continued prayer for judgment for five years from May 13, 1965, \u201cwith the leave of the Court to pronounce judgment at any subsequent term during the said 5-year period upon motion of the solicitor.\u201d\nAllison excepted and appealed.\nAfter appropriate appeal entries for Allison had been made, the court, \u201cfor good cause shown, by and with consent of the defendant given in open Court,\u201d permitted Mr. Childs to withdraw as Allison\u2019s counsel; and thereupon the court appointed David Clark, Esq., as counsel for Allison, an indigent, to prosecute this appeal in his behalf, and ordered that Lincoln County pay all necessary costs incident to a full and proper appeal.\nAttorney General Bruton and Assistant Attorney General Bullock for the State.\nDavid Clark for defendant appellant." }, "file_name": "0512-01", "first_page_order": 552, "last_page_order": 556 }