State v. Perry

Both counts in the indictment charge defendant with burglary in the first degree, a violation of G.S. 14-51. G.S. 14-52 provides that any person convicted, according to due course of law, of the crime of burglary in the first degree shall suffer death, with a proviso that if the jury when rendering its verdict in open court shall so recommend, the punishment shall be imprisonment for life in the State’s prison, and the court shall so instruct the jury.

It is a well-settled rule of practice with us, as provided in G.S. 15-170, that “upon the trial of any indictment the prisoner may be convicted…