Opinion · Nclaw North Carolina
STATE v. FORT, 20 N.C. 332 (1839)
20 N.C. 332
- Type
- Opinion
- Court
- Nclaw North Carolina
- Jurisdiction
- Nclaw
- Date
- 1838-01-01
- Topic
- general
STATE v. FORT, 20 N.C. 332 (1839) THE STATE v. WILEY FORT AND SAMUEL GAUSE.Supreme Court of North Carolina June Term, 1838. Indictment — Forcible Trespass. 1. An indictment for any forcible trespass upon a dwelling house — short of violent taking or withholding of the possession of it — must charge that the proprietor was in the house, or actually present at the time. 2.
Citator
UpLaw has not yet analyzed STATE v. FORT, 20 N.C. 332 (1839). The absence of a flag is not a finding that it is good law.
STATEv. FORT,20 N.C. 332(1839)
THE STATE v. WILEY FORT AND SAMUEL GAUSE.
Supreme Court of North Carolina
June Term, 1838.
1. An indictment for any forcible trespass upon a dwelling house — short of violent taking or withholding of the possession of it — must charge that the proprietor was in the house, or actually present at the time.
2. In an indictment for a forcible entry into a dwelling house it is not necessary to charge or to show that a proprietor was in the house, or present at the time of the violent dispossession.Page 265
A motion was made to quash the indictment, because it did not allege that the proprietor was in the house, or actually present at the time, so as to show that the act had a tendency to a breach of the peace. The Solicitor contended that breaking a dwelling house with (333) strong hand was indictable at common law, whether the owner was present or not, because the law held dwelling houses to be sacred, and extended a peculiar protection to them. His Honor sustained the motion and quashed the indictment, and the Solicitor for the State appealed.
The law certainly has a great respect for the immunities of a man's dwelling, but the law has not deemed it necessary for their protection to hold every direct injury to it an offense against the public. Many of these injuries are properly redressed as private wrongs by actions at the instance of the person injured. The violent taking or withholding of thepossessionof a man's house is indeed regarded as a public offense; and in an indictment for a forcible entry or detainer, the termmanu forti, or with strong hand, being one used in statutes descriptive of the offense, is technically appropriate to designate the violence which is thus visited. In an indictment for a forcible entry it is not necessary to charge or to show that the proprietor was in the house, or present, at the time of the violent dispossession. But we find no authority for the position that a mere trespass upon the dwelling house, short of a violent taking or withholding of the possession thereof, isper sean offense against the community. If committed under such circumstances as necessarily involve a breach of the public peace, or have an immediate tendency to provoke it, then the act may rise from a private to a public wrong. But when prosecuted as a public wrong the indictment must show it to be such, and therefore must charge the circumstances which give to it this character. The epithet "with strong hand" cannot supply the want of the essential constituents of the offense. As connected with a mere trespass, it has no technical meaning, and amounts to no more than is expressed by the words force and arms. It does not imply the presence of the proprietor or of any ofPage 266his family — nor that the act created, or had a tendency to create, terror or indignation — and therefore does not charge an actual breach, (334) or such conduct as is tantamount to an actual breach, of the public peace. The judgment is affirmed.
PER CURIAM. Judgment affirmed.Cited: State v. Whitfield,30 N.C. 316;State v. Walker,32 N.C. 235;State v. Caldwell,47 N.C. 470;State v. Shepard,82 N.C. 616.