## Facts

- Anson County appointed eight individuals as patrollers for a patrol district.
- One night, only three of the eight patrollers went to premises owned by Isham Hailey and others, where enslaved persons slept in a cookhouse within the curtilage.
- The three men identified themselves as patrollers and attempted to enter and search the cookhouse as part of their patrolling duties.
- Hailey and others prevented entry and the search by using threats and weapons.
- The Anson County court had not adopted special patrol rules and had not authorized less than a majority of the patrollers to act.
- Defendants were indicted for forcibly resisting part of a patrol.
- The trial court instructed that the three patrollers lacked legal authority to act, and the State appealed after judgment for defendants.

## Issues

1. Whether, absent county-court regulations authorizing minority action, fewer than a majority of appointed patrollers had legal authority to enter and search such that resistance to them constituted a crime.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed the judgment for defendants.
- In the absence of special county-court regulations, no act of a patroller in the discharge of patrolling duties is valid unless a majority of the patrollers in the district is present and a plurality of that majority sanctions the act.
- Because only three of eight patrollers acted and no rule authorized minority action, the attempted search lacked legal authority; defendants’ resistance was not criminal.

## Legal Principles

- A patrol, treated as a public body exercising coercive authority, must act through a majority unless a statute or duly adopted local regulation provides otherwise.
- When the purported officers lack legal authority to perform the act resisted, forcible resistance does not satisfy an offense requiring resistance to lawful execution of official duties.
- Concerns about unchecked discretion support requiring collective action where officials may intrude on property and exercise quasi-judicial or executive power.

## Conclusion

The court held that, without county authorization permitting a smaller number to act, only a majority of appointed patrollers could lawfully conduct a patrol search; therefore, resistance to an attempted search by only three of eight patrollers was not a criminal offense.


State v. Hailey, 28 N.C. 11 (N.C. 1845)