Raleigh, Oct. 24—Omission of degrees of guilt in the court’s charge to the jury brought an order from the supreme court today for a new trial for James Allen, 18-year-old negro sentenced to the electric chair in Franklin county superior court last May for first degree burglary.
Allen broke into the home of A.B. Allen of Franklin county near midnight on April 23, last. Hiding himself under a bed he is alleged to have attempted to criminally attack Mrs. Allen, who was sleeping with her husband on the bed. He pleaded intoxication. On this plea attorneys of the defense requested a definition by trial Judge Crammer of the degrees of guilt, which Judge Crammer failed to do.
Justice Stacy, writing the majority opinion for the court, finds reason to justify a lighter degree in the case of intoxication and Chief Justice Clark, dissenting vigorously opposes this attitude.
“Without the ulterior felonious intent,” write Justice Stacey, “the crime of burglary as charged would not be complete, and if the prisoner, without any prior criminal intent, were so drunk at the time as not to know where he was or what he was doing, and had no intention of committing a felony in the dwelling house, as alleged, whatever his offense, he would not be guilty of burglary in the first degree because of the absence of an essential ingredient of the crime.”
Chief Justice Clark declared, on the other hand, that if drunkenness “were a valid precedent as a defense, it would have our women unprotected in their homes at night at the mercy of any brute who will testify, or even prove, that he was partially intoxicated.”
From the front page of the Lincoln County News, Lincolnton, N.C., Oct. 29, 1923
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