{
  "id": 1955227,
  "name": "THE STATE v. JOSEPH BAKER",
  "name_abbreviation": "State v. Baker",
  "decision_date": "1871-01",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "332",
  "last_page": "333",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "65 N.C. 332"
    }
  ],
  "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": [],
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T18:41:56.423501+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "THE STATE v. JOSEPH BAKER."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Reads, J.\nThe defendant went up to the prosecutor and said, \u201c I once thought we were Mends, but I understand you have said thus and so about me, and you have got to take it back.\u201d The prosecutor refused to take it back, \u201cwhereupon the defendant put his hand, open and flat, on the prosecutor\u2019s breast and pushed him back some steps,, when he fell over a flour barrel.\u201d\nAt first sight this seems to be so indisputably an assault and battery, that, lest it be supposed that the defendant is encumbering the Court with trifles, it is necessary to state the ingenious shifts of his learned counsel in presenting his 'case.\nI. {\u00a3 It was at a country store where politeness is not a commodity.\u201d Suppose this to be so, and make full allowance for country manners, still, there may be \u201c rudeness \u201d at a country store ; and if this was not, then rudeness cannot he.\nII. u The hand was open.\u201d So it would have been if he had slapped his face.\nEEI. u Whether it was \u00a3 rudeness \u2019 was a question for the jury \u2014 putting the hand on being an equivocal act and might have been friendly.\u201d\nSuppose the facts testified to had been embodied in a .special verdict, would it not have been for the Court to say whether they made a case of guilty ? Doubless. The facts were not disputed, and, therefore, they had the same force as a special verdict. It is true that a, laying on of the hand may be friendly, but here the defendant said at the time that it was not in friendship. i\u00a3 I once thought we were friends,\u201d said he. And he preceded the act by a threat. And the act itself was so violent and insolent as to make it unequivocal. At any rate, if it was intended as an innocent familiarity, in consonance with country manners and local custom, it ought to have been proved to have been so, by the defendant \u2014 the burden of proof was on him,\nThere is no error. Let this be certified.\nPer Curiam. Judgment affirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Reads, J."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Boyden & Bailey, for the defendant.",
      "Attorney General, tor the State."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "THE STATE v. JOSEPH BAKER.\nWhere a defendant went to the prosecutor and said \u201c I once thought we were friends, but I understand you have said thus and so about me, and you have to take it back.\u201d The prosecutor refused to take it back,, whereupon the defendant put his hand open and flat on the prosecutor\u2019s breast, and pushed him back some steps, when he fell over a flour barrel, it was held, to be an assault and battery.\nThis was an indictment for an assault and battery, tried before his Honor, Judge Oloud, at the last Spring Term of Rowan Superior Court.\nThe testimony on the trial was that the parties were at a country store; that the defendant approached the prosecutor, and said, \u201c I once thought we were Mends, but I understand you have said thus and so about me, and you have got to take it back. \u201d The prosecutor said in reply, \u201c that he would not take back anything that he had said,\u201d whereupon, the defendant put his hand, opened and flat, on the prosecutor\u2019s breast and pushed him back some steps, when the prosecutor fell over a flour barrel.\nThis was the only testimony, and his Honor told the jury that if they believed it, the defendant was guilty. The jury returned a verdict of guilty accordingly, and the defendant appealed.\nBoyden & Bailey, for the defendant.\nAttorney General, tor the State."
  },
  "file_name": "0332-01",
  "first_page_order": 342,
  "last_page_order": 343
}