Brock v. North Carolina (344 U.S. 424)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 2, 1953 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 344 U.S. 424 · 73 S. Ct. 349
- Docket
- No. 34
- Argued
- October 23, 1952
- Decided
- February 2, 1953
- Term
- October Term 1952
- Vote
- 6–2
- Majority author
- Justice Minton
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Justice Minton (wrote), Justice Clark, Justice Burton, Justice R. H. Jackson, Justice Frankfurter (wrote a concurrence), Justice Reed
- Dissenting
- Chief Justice Vinson (wrote), Justice Douglas (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Minton delivered the opinion of the Court. The petitioner and two others, Jim Cook and Elmer Matthews, employees on strike from a mill at Tarboro, North Carolina, were arrested for firing five shots from a passing auto into the house of a watchman at the mill, J. D. Wyatt. Wyatt’s house was occupied at the time of the shooting by himself, his wife, his daughter and son-in-law, and the latter couple’s baby. After the shooting, the petitioner and Cook and Matthews were taken to the jail. In the presence of the sheriff, a police officer, and the petitioner, Cook stated that the petitioner had helped plan the assault and had fired the shots. Cook and Matthews were tried first and were found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. Before judgments were entered on their convictions, the petitioner was placed on trial. The State put three witnesses on the stand — the sheriff, the police officer, and Wyatt’s son-in-law. The State then put Cook and Matthews on the stand, intending to use their testimony to corroborate that of the other three witnesses. Cook and Matthews refused to answer the questions of the State on the ground that such answers might tend to incriminate them, and their counsel informed the court that in the event of an adverse judgment on their convictions, they would appeal therefrom to the Supreme Court of North Carolina. The trial court upheld their…
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