## Facts

- William Hall and Dockery, North Carolina residents near the Tennessee border, were prosecuted in North Carolina for the killing of Andrew Bryson.
- The State’s theory was that Hall was a principal in the murder and Dockery was an accessory before the fact.
- The evidence, as framed for jurisdictional purposes, indicated Hall and Dockery were physically in North Carolina when shots were fired across the state line.
- Bryson was physically in Tennessee when shot and died in Tennessee.
- Defendants requested jury instructions that they could not be convicted in North Carolina if the victim was in Tennessee at the time of the shooting and death.
- The trial court refused the requested jurisdictional instructions, and the jury convicted both defendants.

## Issues

1. Whether North Carolina has territorial jurisdiction to prosecute murder when the defendant fires from North Carolina but the victim is in another state at the time of the shooting and dies in that other state.
2. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to instruct the jury to acquit if it found the shooting and death occurred with the victim in Tennessee.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed the convictions and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held North Carolina lacked jurisdiction to punish a homicide consummated in Tennessee, even if the shot was fired from North Carolina.
- The court ruled the defendants were entitled to jury instructions that, if the victim was in Tennessee when shot and died there, North Carolina could not convict on the murder charge.

## Legal Principles

- A state’s criminal jurisdiction is generally territorial; one state cannot enforce the penal laws of another.
- For homicide, the offense is treated as completed where the death occurs; without statutory authorization, an in-state act causing an out-of-state death does not make the homicide prosecutable as committed in the forum state.
- Intrastate venue rules allowing prosecution where the fatal act occurs in one county and death in another within the same state do not, without legislation, extend across state lines.
- Courts will not extend criminal jurisdiction extraterritorially by judicial doctrine where the legislature has not provided a statute authorizing such reach.

## Conclusion

North Carolina could not prosecute Hall and Dockery for murder if the jury found the defendants fired from North Carolina while the victim was in Tennessee and died there; the convictions were reversed because the jury was not properly instructed on this territorial-jurisdiction limitation.


State v. Hall, 114 N.C. 909, 19 S.E. 602 (N.C. 1894)