{
  "id": 1955403,
  "name": "THE STATE v. JOSEPH WALKER",
  "name_abbreviation": "State v. Walker",
  "decision_date": "1871-06",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "461",
  "last_page": "462",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "65 N.C. 461"
    }
  ],
  "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": [],
  "analysis": {
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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 WALKER."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Pearson, C. J.\nWe do not feel at liberty to decide the question mainly discussed in the very elaborate and able argument of Judge Cantwell; that is, has the General Assembly power to abolish a Special Court established in pursuance of a provision of tire Constitution ? For the reason that a preliminary question is decisive of the case, the Court will never go out of the way, and unnecessarily pass upon a power which the General Assembly has assumed to exercise.\n\u201c The General Assembly shall provide for the establishment of Special Courts, for the trials of misdemeanors in cities and towns, when the same may be necessary.\u201d Constitution, Art. 4, Sec. 19.\nUnder this provision, a Special Court was established in the \u00a9ity of Wilmington, Acts of 1868. Rut its jurisdiction could! only extend to misdemeanors, and in order to embrace casesl of larceny \u2014 by act 1869-70, ch. 37 \u2014 it is enacted, \u201cThat al larceny committed within the limits of the city of Wilmington,! where the thing stolen is not of greater value than $25, shalll be a misdemeanor, not a felony.\u201d I\nThis act is repealed by act of 1871, and the effect is to exclude! larceny from the jurisdiction of the Special Court. I\nThere can be no question, that the General Assembly had the same power to repeal the act of 1869\u2019-70, ch. 37, as tc pass it.\nIt follows that the Special Court established for the city o Wilmington, has no longer any jurisdiction to try a persor \u00a9barged with the offence of larceny.\nThere is error. This will be enforced, to the end, that the judgment of the Special Court be reversed and judgment b< entered in favor of the defendant.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Pearson, C. J."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Attorney General and Ccmiwell, for the State.",
      "No counsel for the defendant."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "THE STATE v. JOSEPH WALKER.\nArticle IV. Sec. 19 of the Constitution authorizing the Legislature to establish Special Courts in cities and towns, is confined to misdemeanors. The Legislature declared that larceny of less value than twenty-five dollars should be a misdemeanor. (Act of 1869 \u2014 \u201970, chap. 37.)\nThe effect of the repeal of the aforesaid act was to deprive the Special Court of the city of Wilmington of jurisdiction of larceny.\nIndictment for larceny tried before Cantwell, J., of the Special Court for the city of Wilmington.\nThe evidence was that the defendant had committed larceny of value less than twenty-five dollars, \u2014 that it was committed within the corporate limits of the city of Wilmington, that complaint was made by the accused within six months from the commission of said offence, and without collusion between the accuser and the accused.\nThere was judgment against defendant from which he appealed.\nAttorney General and Ccmiwell, for the State.\nNo counsel for the defendant."
  },
  "file_name": "0461-01",
  "first_page_order": 471,
  "last_page_order": 472
}