State v. Hammond

• Citation: 44 S.E. 933,66 S.C. 300
• Parties: STATE v. HAMMOND.
• Decision Date: 18 May 1903
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina

44 S.E. 933

66 S.C. 300

STATE v. HAMMOND.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

May 18, 1903

Appeal from Circuit Court, Anderson County; Gage, Judge.

Indictment against W. Q. Hammond for failure to clean out stream after notice. From circuit order reversing judgment of magistrate, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Solicitor Boggs and B. F. Martin, for appellant. Tribble & Prince and Bonham & Watkins, for the State.

POPE C.J.

Proceedings were had in a magistrate's court in Anderson county, in this state, by which the defendant was charged and tried for a misdemeanor, in that the defendant had violated sections 1273 and 1274 of the Revised Statutes of the year 1893, which required that the defendant, as a landowner, should remove during the month of May, 1901, from the Little Beaver Dam creek, running through his land, all trash. trees, rafts, and timber, which duty the defendant neglected to perform.

When the trial began, the defendant objected thereto, first because he alleged the said sections 1273 and 1274 were not included in the new Code of Laws. This, however, was a mistake, because section 184 of the Criminal Code, adopted in 1902, covers the provisions of sections 1273 and 1274 of the Revised Statutes of 1893.

Then he objected because said sections 1273 and 1274 were unconstitutional. The magistrate overruled this objection but, on hearing defendant's appeal therefrom, the circuit judge (Judge Gage) sustained the appeal, and ordered the judgment below reversed, and directed that the prosecution be dismissed. No reasons were given by the circuit judge for his judgment, but it is evident that he bottomed his action upon the unconstitutionality of the law hereinbefore referred to. This court has several times during the year, and even before that period of time, held that whenever the Legislature of this state disregarded the terms of the Constitution of 1895, by attempting to pass special instead of general laws, such efforts were nugatory. So, therefore when the Legislature in 1902 re-enacted the provisions of sections 1273 and 1274 of the Revised Statutes of 1893, and confined the operation of said sections to the counties of Anderson, Chester, Greenville, Oconee, Union, Fairfield Laurens, Newberry, Abbeville, Pickens, Spartanburg, and York, exempting all the other counties of the state from the operation of such sections 1273 and 1274, such action of the Legislature was null and void, because...