State v. Landreth, 5 N.C. 446, 2 Car. L. Rep. 446 (1816)

Jan. 1816 · Supreme Court of North Carolina

5 N.C. 446, 2 Car. L. Rep. 446

State v. Landreth.

The defendant was indicted for malicious mischief, in stabbing with a butcher’s knife, a mare the property of Young; but from the circumstances disclosed in the evidence, Henderson, J. before whom the cause was tried, was inclined to doubt whether the facts proved constituted the crime. He therefore recommended the jury to find a special verdict; in which it is stated, that the defendant took the mare from his corn-field, where she was damaging his growing corn, to a secret part of the county, where he inflicted the wound, with a view of preventing a repetition of the injury.

The case was submitted.

Taylor, C. J.

delivered the opinion of the Court:

We do not think that the facts found in this case, bring the offence within the common law notion of malicious mischief. That seems to be confined to those cases, where the act is done in a spirit of wanton malignity, without provocation or excuse, and under circumstances which bespeak a mind prompt and disposed to the commission of mischief. It is essential, says Blackstone, to the commission of this offence, that it must be done out of a spirit of wanton cruelty, or black and diabolical revenge. 4 Bl. 244.

The conduct of the defendant was certainly highly reprehensible and barbarous, yet it was prompted by the sudden resentment of an injury, which is calculated, in no slight degree, to awaken passion; and there is a difference which every one must feel, between an act committed under such circumstances, and one where the party, goes off his own, land in pursuit of an animal which had done him no injury, for the sake of exercising cruelty, or perpetrating wanton mischief.—Judgment for the defendant.