{
  "id": 11278892,
  "name": "STATE v. HENRY HAUSE",
  "name_abbreviation": "State v. Hause",
  "decision_date": "1874-06",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "518",
  "last_page": "521",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "71 N.C. 518"
    }
  ],
  "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": "2023-07-14T17:06:20.176490+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "STATE v. HENRY HAUSE."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Settle, J.\nThe manifest object of the act entitled \u201cAn act to prevent willful trespasses upon lands and stealing any kind of property therefrom,\u201d in the forcible language of Judge BoxdeN, in the State v. Hanks, 66 N. C. Rep. 612, was to keep oil \u201cinterlopers\u201d and to subject them to indictment if they invaded the possession after they had been forbidden to do so. If one commits a trespass upon the land of another, his good faith in the matter or ignorance of the true right or title will not exonerate him from civil responsibility for the act.\nBut when the statute affixed to such a trespass the consequences of a criminal offence, we will not presume that the Legislature intended to punish criminally acts committed in ignorance, by accident, or under claim of right, and in the Toona fide belief that the land is the property of the trespasser, unless the terms of the statute forbid any other construction. State v. Dodson, 6 Caldwell. The record in this case states that the title to the land on which the alleged trespasses have been committed is in dispute between the defendant and the prosecutor.\nAn attempt to try the title to land by an indictment under the statute in question, would be a perversion of its use and an abuse of the State\u2019s prerogative, which should not be tolerated by the Courts.\nThe defendant\u2019s counsel requested his Honor to instruct the jury, \u201c that it was not necessary for the defendant to have the legal right to travel the roads described in the evidence, bu that if he believed he had the right because he, and the prior occupants of his land, had been using the road for fifteen or sixteen years, and that prior occupants had been crossing this angle of land at difierent points for thirty years, without any objection on the point of the prosecutor \u2014 that if .he believed that this long usage gave him a license to travel these roads, notwithstanding he might be mistaken, he would not be guilty.\u201d\nTo these instructions we think he was entitled. Eor, conceding it to be a civil trespass, still if the guilty intent was wanting and the entry was made- under a bona fide claim of right, the defendant was not criminally guilty.\nBut his Honor charged the jury, \u201c that if the defendant had used the road for thirty years, it gave him a license to travel over it, but that fifteen or sixteen years would not,\u201d thus cutting off from their consideration the view that the defendant may have acted on a bona fide belief that the user of the road for fifteen or sixteen years gave him a license to travel over it. Nor is this error cured by what follows in the charge, \u201c that if the defendant had reasonable ground to believe that the land was his, and did so believe, he had a right to cut timber on the land; otherwise, he did not.\u201d\nThis instruction was not responsive to the prayer, but was . calculated to mislead the jury. We have often said that the Court need not respond in the exact language of the prayer, but a failure to give, in substance, the instruction prayed for, if the defendant be entitled to it, is error.\nThere must be a venire de novo. State v. Ellen, 68 N. C. Rep. 281; State v. Whitehurst, 70 N. C. Rep. 85.\nPee Cueiam. Venire de novo.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Settle, J."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "No counsel in this Court for defendant.",
      "Attorney General Hargrove, for the State."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "STATE v. HENRY HAUSE.\nIf a defendant enter upon land, or travel an open way, (the trespass charged,) under a Iona fide elaim of right, he is not criminally guilty of a trespass on land under the statute.\nAnd he is not guilty, if at the time it was done, he believed he had the right to enter, or travel on or over the road, because he, and the for. mer owners of the land had done so for sixteen or seventeen years. (State v. Allen, 68 N. C. Rep. 281; State v. Whitehwist-, 70 N. C. Rep. 85.)\nIrdiotmeNt, for a trespass on land, tried before Logan, L, at Spring Term, 1875., of Lincoln Superior Court.\nThe land on which the trespass was alleged to have been committed, is an acute angle between the defendant\u2019s land and a public road which runs by his place. From defendant\u2019s land to the public road, runs a road, which crosses this land at the largest opening of the angle, a distance of about forty yards.\nThis road was cut fifteen or sixteen years ago, the prosecutor not objecting, and has been used by the defendant and prior owners of defendant\u2019s land without any objection from the prosecutor, until defendant was notified a short time before the finding of this indictment not to come on or trespass on any lands of the prosecutor, in the said county of Lincoln. There was another road from defendant\u2019s land to the public road, used as a mill road, crossing the angle of land above alluded to at its apex, or where the public road and defendant\u2019s land joined. The title to the land over -which this road ran is in dispute between the prosecutor and the defendant. This road had been cut fifteen or sixteen years, and used by defendant and the prior owners of his land without objection, until the notice before mentioned.\nIt was in evidence, that the former owners and occupants of the defendant\u2019s land and himself had been crossing this angle of the land at different points in getting to the public road for more than thirty years, and that through this angle of land was the only way they could get to the public road without great inconvenience.\nIt was also in evidence, that after the defendant had been notified not to trespass on the land of the prosecutor, he continued to travel these roads, and where a tree had been felled across the road near the apex of the angle, he had cut the top of the tree off to make a road around the felled tree.\nThe defendant\u2019s counsel asked the Court to instruct the jury that it was not necessary for the defendant to have the legal right to travel the roads above described, but that if he believed he had the right because he and the former occupants of his land had been using the road fifteen or sixteen years, and that former owners had been crossing this land for thirty years, without any objection on the part of the prosecutor, that if he believed this long usage gave him a license to travel these roads,-notwithstanding he might be mistaken, he would not be guilty.\nHis Honor charged the jury, that if the defendant had used the road for thirty years, it gave him a license to travel over it, but that fifteen or sixteen years would not. That the defendant bad reasonable ground to belieye that the land was his, and did so believe, he had a right to cut timber on the land; otherwise, he did not. Defendant again excepted.\nThere was a verdict of guilty. Motion in arrest of judgment ; motion overruled. Judgment and appeal by the defendant.\nNo counsel in this Court for defendant.\nAttorney General Hargrove, for the State."
  },
  "file_name": "0518-01",
  "first_page_order": 526,
  "last_page_order": 529
}