Opinion
No. 7318SC655
Filed 28 November 1973
APPEAL by defendant from Crissman, Judge, 23 October 1972 Regular Criminal Session of Superior Court held in GUILFORD County, Greensboro Division.
Attorney General Morgan, by Attorney Ruth G. Bell, for the State.
Frye, Johnson Barbee, by Marquis D. Street, for defendant appellant.
Defendant, Fred Crawford, and Ralph Wayne Rankin were charged in separate bills of indictment with the larceny of $15.00 from the person of Lucille M. Langston on 7 October 1972. All three were found guilty by a jury. From judgments imposing prison sentences the defendant and Ralph Wayne Rankin filed separate appeals to this Court.
The Rankin case has been heard and this Court, with Judge Hedrick dissenting, found no error. State v. Rankin, 18 N.C. App. 252, 196 S.E.2d 621. It was then appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, and in an opinion by Justice Lake, filed 14 November 1973 and reported in 284 N.C. 219, 200 S.E.2d 182, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals. The opinions in the companion Rankin case in both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court set out in detail the facts and legal issues involved in the present appeal.
The case of State v. Ralph Wayne Rankin, 284 N.C. 219, 200 S.E.2d 182 (filed 14 November 1973), is controlling on all questions presented by this appeal. The facts concerning defendant and Ralph Wayne Rankin as participants in the larceny are identical, and there is no valid distinction in the application of the law to their cases.
No error.
Chief Judge BROCK and Judge HEDRICK concur.