Opinion · Superior Court of North Carolina

State v. . Webb

2 N.C. 103

Type
Opinion
Court
Superior Court of North Carolina
Jurisdiction
North Carolina
Date
1794-09-05
Topic
general

How later courts describe this case

  • “no man shall be prejudiced by evidence which he had not the liberty to cross-examine”
  • decided three years after the adoption of the Sixth Amendment

Citator

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Cited by
17 opinions
STATEv. WEBB,2 N.C. 103(1794)
STATE v. WEBB.
Superior Court of North Carolina
(September Term, 1794.)
Depositions taken in the absence of a criminal shall not be read against him.
PLEASANT WEBB was indicted for horse-stealing, and upon the trial the Attorney-General offered to give in evidence the deposition of one Young, to whom he had sold the horse in South Carolina but a very short time after the horse was stolen; and cited in support of this attempt, 2 H. H. P. C., 284; H. P. C., 429; Bull., 252; La. Ev., 140, 142; 3 Term, 713.
(104)
ASHE and WILLIAMS, JJ.
These authorities do not say that depositions taken in the absence of the prisoner shall be read, and our act of Assembly, 1715, ch. 16, clearly implies the depositions to be read must be taken in his presence. It is a rule of the common law, founded on natural justice, that no man shall be prejudiced by evidence which he had not the liberty to cross-examine; and though it be insisted that the act intended to make an exception, in this instance, to the rule of the common law, yet the act has not expressly said so, and we will not, by implication, derogate from the salutory rules established by the common law.

So the deposition was rejected.