State v. Burk, 49 N.C. 7, 4 Jones 7 (1856)

Dec. 1856 · Supreme Court of North Carolina

49 N.C. 7, 4 Jones 7

STATE vs. HENRY BURK.

To constitute the offence of harboring a runaway slave, it is not necessary that, at the time of first receiving the slave, the defendant conceived tho purpose of fraudulently harboring, if Ills acts afterwards plainly evinced such a purpose.

.This was an uydigtMENt for harboring a runaway slave, tried before his Honor, Judge Bailey, at the Eall Term, 1856, of Chowan Superior Court.

. On the trial below, it was in - evidence, that the slave in question had run away from his master’s service on Saturday, and that on Monday, Mr. Small, the owner, proceeded, after night, to the house of the defendant, and knocked several times without any response; that he then threatened to break the door, when the defendant got up from his bed and opened it. He askecl the defendant, who were there; to which ho answered, no one but himself, his wife and her sister. On this, the witness searched the house and found his slave under the defendant’s bed. He asked him why he had his boy harbored, when he knew he was runaway; he answered that the boy had come to him that night, and asked him to let him stay there till morning, when he was going to give himself up to his master. There was no other material evidence.

His Honor charged the. jury, that to convict the prisoner upon the count for harboring, it must be proved, to their satisfaction, that the slave was runaway, and that the defendant knew it at the time of the alleged harboring.

The defendant’s counsel requested the Court to instruct them further, that if the defendant, when he admitted the slave to his house for the night, believed that he intended to return to his master in the morning, it was not a fraudulent harboring under the statute.

This instruction the Court refused to give ; whereupon the defendant excepted.

Verdict and judgment for the State. Appeal.

Bailey, (.Attorney General) for the State.

Heath, for the defendant.

Battle. J.

The charge given by his Honor, to the jury, as to the testimony necessary to be shown to prove the defendant’s guilt was correct, and we do not understand' that any objection is made to it. It assumes the propriety- of the construction of the statute in relation to the harboring of runaway slaves, (Rev. Code ch. 34, sec. 81,) which was adopted by the Court in Dark v. Marsh, 2 Car. L. Repos. 249, and followed in Thomas v. Alexander, 2 Dev. and Bat. Rep. 385. But the counsel for the defendant contends that his Honor ought to have instructed the jury, that if the defendant, at the time when the slave came to his house, believed that he intended to return to his master the next morning, he was not guilty of the offence of harboring him. Such an instruction would bare withdrawn from the consideration of the jury the effect of the testimony as to the defendant’s conduct at the time when the master came to search his house. The defendant may not hare intended at first any fraudulent concealment of the slave, and yet have afterwards changed his mind. The instruction prayed seems to imply that there could not have been any such change of purpose, and in that respect it would have been erroneous, and was, therefore, properly refused. The testimony, if believed, was sufficient to justify the jury in finding that- the defendant did fraudulently conceal the slave from his master, for a short time at least, and that was enough to establish his guilt.

Pee CueiaM. Judgment affirmed.