{ "id": 8688784, "name": "The State v. James Dodd", "name_abbreviation": "State v. Dodd", "decision_date": "1819-05", "docket_number": "", "first_page": "226", "last_page": "229", "citations": [ { "type": "nominative", "cite": "3 Mur. 226" }, { "type": "official", "cite": "7 N.C. 226" } ], "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": { "cardinality": 338, "char_count": 6983, "ocr_confidence": 0.368, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.620097362041658e-07, "percentile": 0.6870722964929615 }, "sha256": "d1960e6acf25e9e0a7cecdcff88b01abaa36bd95cea8e2a0b8d4a5f77f3e385d", "simhash": "1:666d8083babd4368", "word_count": 1226 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T14:45:47.457789+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "The State v. James Dodd." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Henderson, Judge,\ndelivered the opinion of the Court:\nThe indictment charges a kind of quasi perjury, unknown in our laws, and entirely inconsistent with our ideas of criminal acts. For, in the absence of positive acts of the Legislature, where the will of the Legislature stands for tlie reason of the law, we know of no rule or criterion by which an act can be ascertained to be criminal, but that of its being against the interest of the State. A false oath is only injurious to the State, or even to an individual, where it tends to prevent right. Therefore, to constitute perjury, it must be to some material fact tending to injure some person. If it bo entirely immaterial, it cannot affect any one: it wants a necessary ingredient to constitute it an offence against society, and that is, a possibility of injuring the community, or an individual of that community, in a manner which the good of the whole requires to be repressed. Apart from this consideration, it is not for Courts of Justice to inquire how the act stands in a moral or religious' point of view.\nWe do not say that the facts sworn to, if false, did not amount to perjury,* but that they are not so charged or averred as to shew that they constitute that crime. Without such charge or averment, the Court cannot value their tendency. The judgment must be arrested.", "type": "majority", "author": "Henderson, Judge," } ], "attorneys": [], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "The State v. James Dodd.\n1 I From Rutherford. J\nIndictment charged, that Defendant falsely, wittingly, corruptly, Ac. swore to certain facts before the Grand Jury upon a bill of indictment, but did not charge, how or in what way, the facts thus sworn to, had a bearing- upon the allegations of the indictment, nor that they were material to, or connected with, the question then under consideration by the Grand Jury. Judgment arrested.\nIn the absence of positive acts of the Legislature, there is no criterion by which an act can be ascertained to'be criminal, but that of its being against the interest of the State. A false oath is injurious to the State or to an individual, only where it tends to prevent right; therefore to constitute perjury, it must be to some material fact tending to injure some person.\nThe indictment charged, \u201c that at a Superior Court of \u201c Law, opened and held for the County of Rutherford, by \u201c the Honorable Duncan Cameron, one of the Judges of u the Superior Courts of Law and Equity, in and for the \u201c State of North-Carolina, and County aforesaid, on the \u201c third Monday after the fourth Monday of March, eigh- \u201c teen hundred and sixteen, there was a bill of indictment \u201c preferred, and sent to the Grand Jury of said Court, in \u201c behalf of the State, against Joseph Hamilton and Noble \u201c Hamilton, for a charge of assault and battery, alleged to \u201c have been committed, before that time, upon the body of \u201c one-James Dodd, by the aforesaid Joseph and Noble \u201cHamilton; and the aforesaid James Dodd was intro- \u201c duced as \u00a1a witness in behalf of the State, and was sworn \u201c in due form of law, before the Honorable Duncan Came- \u201c ron, Judge as aforesaid, (he the said Duncan Cameron, \u201c then and there having full and competent power and autlio-*e pity to administer an oath to the said James Dodd in that \u00a3\u00a3 behalf) upon the Holy Gospel of God, to speak the truth, \u00a3\u00a3 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to the Grand \u201c Jury aforesaid, touching and concerning what he the \u201c said James Dodd might know, of and concerning the \u201c charge, in the aforesaid bill of indictment contained, \u201c against the said Joseph and Noble Hamilton : and the \u201c Jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further \u201c present, that the aforesaid James Dodd, being so sworn \u201c as aforesaid, and not having the fear of God before his \u00a3\u00a3 eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigations of \u00a3\u00a3 the Devil, in the County aforesaid, at the term afore- <\u00a3 said last above mentioned, before the Court and Grand \u201c Jury aforesaid, by his own act and consent, and of his \u201c own most wicked and corrupt mind and disposition, did \u00a3t wilfully, wittingly, knowingly, wickedly, maliciously \u2022'*' and corruptly, swear, depose and say, and give evidence \u201c to the Grand Jury aforesaid, upon his oath aforesaid, \u00a3\u00a3 (among other things) in substance and to the effect fol- \u201c lowing, that is to say, that he the said James Dodd did ei not, on the night that the assault and battery was charg- \u00a3\u00a3 ed by Mm to have been committed, by the said Joseph \u201c and Noble Hamilton on the body of him the said James \u00a3\u00a3 Dodd, see a negro woman Celia, a slave of Noble Ha- \u201c miltou, speak to her, or receive any tiling from her, and \u201c that he came to the place where he received the abuse, \u00a3\u00a3 on his lawful business, to receive money from Mrs. Ha- \u00a3\u00a3 milton, that she owed him, and that he did not know \u00a3\u00a3 any person was there until ho was knocked down : \u00a3\u00a3 Whereas, in truth and in fact, he the said James Dodd \u00a3\u00a3 did see a negro woman slave named Celia, the property \u00a3\u00a3 of Noble Hamilton, on the night and immediately before \u00a3\u00a3 the time that he, the said James Dodd, received the abuse \u00a3< from the said Joseph and Noble Hamilton, and whereas, \u00a3\u00a3 in truth and in fact, he the said James Dodd did receive \u00a3i from the said negro woman Celia, a large sum of money, 'i? to-wit, the sum of ten dollars, on the same night, and a before the time that he the said James Dodd received the \u201c abuse from the said Joseph and Noble Hamilton \\ and ci whereas, in truth and in fact, he the said James Dodd, \u201c on the night that he received the abuse, did not go to the \u201c place where he received it on his lawful business, nor to \u201c receive money which Mrs. Hamilton owed to him, but, \u201c in truth and in fact, he the said James Dodd did go to \u201c the place where he received the abuse, on the night that he received the same, and immediately before he received \u201c the same from the said Joseph and Noble Hamilton, for \u201c the express purpose, and none \u25a0 other, of receiving the e< aforesaid ten dollars, from the said negro slave Celia, \u201c and did receive the same from her, he the said James \u201c Dodd, at the time of receiving* the same, well believing \u201c that the said ten dollars were feloniously stolen from the ee said Noble Hamilton : And so the Jurors aforesaid, upon (i their oath aforesaid, do say, that the aforesaid James \u201c Dodd, upon his oath aforesaid, before the Court and \u201c Grand Jury aforesaid, the said Duncan Cameron, Judge \u201c as aforesaid, then and there having competent power to \u201c administer said oath to the said James Dodd, in tliatbe- \u201c half, in the year and at the term aforesaid, in the County