Volume XIII THE STATE
Number 35
д
Weekly Survey of North Caroline
January 26
1946
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IULl«h. North CmoUm. under the Act of VUrch 3.
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Few Fai
I I
ous Lawsuits
In uliicli .Ur. Lawrence seeks lo point out
tlint tlie Inu is not
я
fixcil science, ainil that
the reversal off today may become the law
of tomorrow.
SOME laymen wonder why a
lawyer sometimes has diffi¬
culty in telling them just what
the law is, or how the court will
hold on a given question. The an¬
swer, of course is, that the law is
not a fixed science such as mathe¬
matics or astronomy, but pro¬
gresses and develops according to
changes in life and thought from
generation to generation; so that
the law of today becomes but the
outworn and discarded creed of to¬
morrow. For instance, in the very
first homicide case in our Reports,
the Supreme Court arrested the
judgment in a conviction for mur¬
der upon the ground that in the
indictment the word breast had
been spelled "brest" the allega¬
tion being that the lethal wound
was inflicted by stabbing in the left
"brest": and there are other deci¬
sions quite as amusing in the light
of present day conditions.
Of the thousands of cases which
have been decided by our court it
is difficult to select cases which 1
feel will be of interest to the gen¬
eral public, but I am calling atten¬
tion to the following which should
certainly be included in any list
of landmarks of the law in the legal
history of our state.
Hoke v. Henderson
The case of Hoke v. Henderson
is one of the most famous of all the
many cases which have been de¬
cided by our court. It involved the
title to the office of Clerk of the
Superior Court of Lincoln County,
and the plaintiff was a member of
a famous family, one which pro¬
duced a Democratic candidate for
Governor; Major General Robert
F. Hoke; and Chief Justice William
A. Hoke. The principle decided
THE STATE January 26 1946
Ki
/ К.
C. LAWRENCE
was that a man who was elected to
a public office had a vested interest
therein of which he could not be
deprived by new legislative enact¬
ment. This’ case was cited perhaps
more frequently than any other in
our reports. After the short re¬
gime of the Fusionists was over,
the Democratic legislature sought
to legislate many Fusion adminis¬
trative boards out of office by the
expedient of repealing the act cre¬
ating them, and creating a new
board under a new name but with
substantially similar powers. But
the Supreme Court was controlled
by the Fusionists, and the court
consistently held that these legis¬
lative acts were null and void un¬
der the authority of Hoke v. Hen¬
derson. Later, when the Democrats
sought to impeach two Republican
judges for their decision in these
cases, their counsel pointed to Hoke
v, Henderson as having been unani¬
mously approved by the court both
when it was controlled by the
Democrats as when it was con¬
trolled by Republicans; and their
defense was based not only upon
the lack of any corrupt or wrong¬
ful motive; but also upon the the¬
ory that their decisions had been
in accordance with the principle of
stare decisis as declared in Hoke v.
Henderson. Enough Democrats felt
this way to prevent a conviction of
the Judges.
The Case of the Negro. Will
State v. Will was a famous case
which involved that most ele¬
mental of all human rights— that
of self-defense. Will was a slave.
and had no name save that of
"Will." as slaves were not even
allowed to take the name of their
masters in the days of bondage.
Prior to the Will case, the court
had held that a slave possessed no
rights which his master was bound
to respect, and that a bondsman
could not assert the right to pro¬
tect himself against a murderous
and unprovoked attack made upon
him by his master or overseer.
Will belonged to a member of
the famous Battle family of Edge¬
combe, and he killed his overseer
under circumstances clearly indi¬
cating that he had acted entirely
in self-defense; but under the
charge of the court, the jury very
promptly convicted the slave of
murder and he was sentenced to
death. But Joel Battle, the humane
owner of the human chattel, in¬
stead of approving the conviction
of his slave, employed Bartholo¬
mew F. Moore, the leader of the
Carolina Bar. to appeal the case to
the Supreme Court, and paid him
a fee of $1,000.00 for his services
more than the slave was then
worth. Moore's argument in this
case was said to have been the most
masterly legal argument ever de¬
livered in this State with the pos¬
sible exception of Gaston's famous
two-day argument on the question
of religious liberty for the Catho¬
lics. The court finally handed down
its decision and held that while
self-defense was not sufficient to
exculpate a slave, it was sufficient
to reduce the offense from murder
to manslaughter' This was the
forerunner of the day when the
God-given right of self-defense was
declared the inalienable legal right
of every man. bond or free; but
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