The legislative department has made this very plain in numerous enactments, notably in The Code, secs. 1183, 1189, 908, and in many other sections, and in the comparatively recent statutes providing short forms of indictment for murder (Laws 1887, ch. 58; S. v. Arnold, 107 N.C. 861), perjury (Laws 1889, ch. 83; S. v. Gates, 107 N.C. 832), and the like. It is not astonishing that defendants who have no meritorious ground of exception should clutch at shadowy nothings, but our courts have faithfully followed the letter and spirit of the legislation which favors trials upon the merits. As far back as S. v. Moses, 13 N.C. 452 (at page 464), the elder Ruffin, speaking of the act (now Code, sec. 1183) which provides that "No judgment shall be arrested by reason of any informality or refinement," says: "This law was certainly designed to uphold the execution of public justice by freeing the courts from those fetters of forms, technicality, and refinement (italics his) which do not concern the substance of the charge and the proof to support it. Many of the sages of the law had before called nice objections of this sort a disease of (1051) the law and a reproach to the bench, and lamented that they were bound down to strict and precise precedents. . . . We think the Legislature meant to disallow the whole of them and only require the substance, that is, a direct averment of those facts and circumstances which constitute the crime to be set forth. It is to be remarked that the act directs the court to proceed to judgment without regard to two things — one the form, the other refinement.

7. When the incompetency of the juror is not discovered until after the verdict, it is matter of discretion for the judge whether he will grant a new trial or not; his refusal to do so is not reviewable. ( S. v. Duncan, 28 N.C. 236; S. v. Moses, 13 N.C. 452; S. v. Davis, 77 N.C. 483; S. v. Jones, 80 N.C. 415; S. v. Boon, ibid., 461; S. v. Beverly, 88 N.C. 632; S. v. Gee, 92 N.C. 756; S. v. Adair, 66 N.C. 298; S. v. Patrick, 48 N.C. 443; S. v. Greenwood, 2 N.C. 141; S. v. Davis, 80 N.C. 412; S. v. Perkins, 66 N.C. 126; Spicer v. Fulghum, 67 N.C. 18, cited and approved.) THIS was an indictment for murder, tried before Gilmer, J., at (619) Spring Term, 1885, of SWAIN.

But many, including jurists, viewed objections to superficial indictment defects under the common law as "a disease of the law, and a reproach to the bench" which were "reluctantly[ ] entertained." State v. Moses, 13 N.C. 452, 463 1830. Still, our courts were confined to a formalistic approach while they waited for the General Assembly to modernize indictment requirements.

Id. at 458 ; see also id. at 461 ("HENDERSON, J., observed, that if the Court were now about to decide on the propriety of requiring the dimensions of any wound charged in an indictment to be mortal, to be set out, he should be clearly of opinion that it was unnecessary."); id. at 463 ("All modern writers agree that the dimensions of the wound must be stated—not for any good reason, he admitted, but it was not for the Court to legislate, but to decide, as they had sworn to do, according to the law."). In 1811, the General Assembly enacted a statute intended to alleviate some of these technical requirements—likely as a response to Owen . State v. Hunt , 357 N.C. 257, 268, 582 S.E.2d 593, 600-01 (2003) (citing State v. Moses , 13 N.C. 452, 463 1830 ). Still in effect today, that enactment provided that an indictment "is sufficient ... if it expresses the charge against the defendant in a plain, intelligible, and explicit manner; and the same shall not be quashed, nor the judgment thereon stayed, by reason of any informality or refinement, if in the bill or proceeding, sufficient matter appears to enable the court to proceed to judgment."

In 1811, reacting to a case in which the verdict was overturned based upon an indictment's failure to allege, among other things, the depth of the victim's wound, the North Carolina legislature passed what is now codified as N.C.G.S. § 15-153. State v. Moses, 13 N.C. 452, 463 (1830) ("The act of 1811 . . . passed the year after [the Owen] case was decided and we have reason to believe was caused by it.") (citing Owen, 5 N.C. 452). N.C.G.S. § 15-153 provides in substance the same as its 1811 ancestor, that an indictment

While we do not wish to encourage or approve carelessness in drafting warrants or bills of indictment, on the other hand, we do not look with favor upon the practice of quashing warrants or bills of indictment or arresting judgments for mere refinements or informalities that could not possibly have been prejudicial to the rights of the defendants in the trial court. S. v. Moses, 13 N.C. 452; S. v. Barnes, 122 N.C. 1031, 29 S.E. 381; S. v. Hester, 122 N.C. 1047, 29 S.E. 380; S. v. Francis, 157 N.C. 612, 72 S.E. 1041; S. v. Ratliff, 170 N.C. 707, 86 S.E. 997; S. v. Carpenter, 173 N.C. 767, 92 S.E. 373; S. v. Poythress, 174 N.C. 809, 93 S.E. 919; S. v. Hedgecock, 185 N.C. 714, 117 S.E. 47; S. v. Whitley, 208 N.C. 661, 182 S.E. 338; S. v. Anderson, 208 N.C. 771, 182 S.E. 643: S. v. Sumner, supra. This Court, in the case of S. v. Barnes, supra, speaking through Clark J., later Chief Justice, said: "It is passing strange that any prosecuting officer should by negligence or inadvertence depart, . . . from the forms so long used, and run the risk of a grave miscarriage of justice and throwing a heavy bill of costs on the public by such carelessness.

In our criminal procedure it is provided by statute, C. S., 4623, that every criminal indictment is sufficient in form if it express the charge against the defendant in a plain, intelligible and explicit manner, and that the indictment shall not be quashed nor the judgment thereon stayed by reason of any informality or refinement, if in the bill sufficient matter appears to enable the court to proceed to judgment. This section, too, has been discussed and applied in numerous decisions of this Court, among which are: S. v. Moses, 13 N.C. 452; S. v. Gallimore, 24 N.C. 372; S. v. Whedbee, supra; S. v. Francis, 157 N.C. 612, 72 S.E. 1041; S. v. Ratliff, 170 N.C. 707, 86 S.E. 997; S. v. Carpenter, 173 N.C. 767, 92 S.E. 373; S. v. Sauls, 190 N.C. 810, 130 S.E. 848; S. v. Ballangee, 191 N.C. 700, 132 S.E. 795; S. v. Lea, 203 N.C. 13, 164 S.E. 737; S. v. Whitley, 208 N.C. 661, 182 S.E. 338; S. v. Anderson, 208 N.C. 771, 182 S.E. 643; S. v. Dale, 218 N.C. 625, 12 S.E.2d 556. Furthermore, the decisions of this Court are uniform in holding in substance that in an indictment for a statutory crime all the facts and circumstances essential to brink the case within the statutory definition of the offense must be specifically set forth.

In S. v. Carter, 1 N.C. 406, where an indictment for murder contained the word "brest," instead of "breast," in describing the location of the wound, it was held by a majority of the Court of Conference that the omission of the letter "a" was sufficient ground for arresting the judgment. But a contrary view was expressed in S. v. Molier, 12 N.C. 263, and ever since the Act of 1811, now C. S., 4623, informalities and refinements in the language of the bill may be properly disregarded, if the criminal offense be sufficiently described to inform the defendant of the charge against him, and to enable him to make his defense, and protect him from another prosecution for the same criminal act. S. v. Moses, 13 N.C. 452; S. v. Williams, 210 N.C. 159, 185 S.E. 661; S. v. Puckett, 211 N.C. 66; S. v. Anderson, 208 N.C. 771. That the murder was charged to have been committed while in the act of robbing the deceased was equivalent to alleging that it was committed in the perpetration of the robbery.

" In the oft-cited case of S. v. Moses, 13 N.C. 452, it was remarked that the statute was designed to liberate the courts from the fetters of form, technicality, and refinement which do not concern the substance of the charge, and that sages of the law had called nice objections of this sort a disease of the law and a reproach to the bench. There the denounced "refinement" was a contention that the dimensions of a mortal wound must be described in an indictment for murder; and in S. v. Noblett, 47 N.C. 418, it was argued on behalf of the defendant that the judgment should be arrested because the word "blow" instead of "wound" was used in an indictment for murder.

" This principle has been amplified and applied in subsequent adjudications. Plummer v. Boston Elevated Railway, 198 Mass. 499, 514, 515. Sawyer v. Worcester Consolidated Street Railway, 231 Mass. 215, 218, 219. Posell v. Herscovitz, 237 Mass. 513, 515. O'Neill v. Ross, 250 Mass. 92, 96, 97. Field v. Hamm, 254 Mass. 268, 271. See, also, State v. Moses, 13 N.C. 452, 456-463. We are of opinion that it cannot be said that there was failure of duty in this respect by the trial judge.