State v. Anderson

• Citation: 67 S.E. 237,85 S.C. 229
• Parties: STATE v. ANDERSON.
• Decision Date: 15 March 1910
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

67 S.E. 237

85 S.C. 229

STATE v. ANDERSON.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

March 15, 1910

Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Laurens County; Geo E. Prince, Judge.

John Henry Anderson was convicted of murder, and appeals. Affirmed.

H. S Blackwell and W. R. Richey, Jr., for appellant. R. A. Cooper Sol., for the State.

HYDRICK J.

The appellant was convicted of the murder of Josh Carter, his father-in-law.

The exceptions impute error to the circuit judge: (1) In not leaving the examination of witnesses wholly to the attorneys (2) in charging that the only form of justifiable homicide known to our law is where the sheriff executes a man pursuant to the mandate of a court of competent jurisdiction; (3) in refusing to charge the law of self-defense; (4) in refusing a motion for a new trial on the minutes, because it appeared that defendant was not responsible for his acts; (5) in refusing a motion for a new trial on after-discovered evidence; (6) in sentencing appellant to be publicly executed.

In the early part of 1908 appellant shot the son of his employer, and became a fugitive from justice. His wife, with her nine children, moved to the home of her father. While evading the officers of the law, appellant occasionally visited his family. For some reason, not fully explained by the testimony, appellant had made some threats against Carter, and the relations between them were not friendly. Hence, on his first visit to his family after they had moved to the home of Carter, before going into the house, he sent his oldest son in to inquire if he should come in. He was told to come in, and did so. He testified that he asked Carter if he objected to his coming there to see his wife and children, and that Carter told him he was done with him, and had no further use for him. After that he did not go into the house, but would call his wife and children out and see them. On one of these visits, according to his testimony, Carter became enraged at him and shot at him with a gun, and he returned the fire with his pistol. Some time in the spring, he made arrangements to move his family to another place, and sent wagons for them, but they did not go. His wife testified that she did not go because he was "scouting," and could not take care of them, and because she and her children had been living off her father, and he had planted a larger crop than he would otherwise have planted, expecting them to help him cultivate it. The defendant thought that Carter kept his family from moving. In the late summer two of his children died of fever, about a week apart. On the day the last to die was buried he was in the church, whence the burial took place, and as Carter was entering the church, defendant passed him at the door, and without saying a word, and without a word having been said to him by Carter, or any demonstration against him having been made, he drew a pistol and shot Carter in the back, inflicting a mortal wound. And, according to the testimony of all the witnesses, except his own, he tried to shoot Carter's wife, his mother-in-law, snapping his pistol at her several times. When asked why he shot Carter, he replied: "Because he didn't give up my family, and kept them in that hobble against me, and I had notified him that if he did not put them out, I would shoot him, if I met him. He told me to do it now, and be done with it."

In support of the first ground, appellant relies upon the cases of State v. Atkinson 33 S.C. 100, 11 S.E. 693, and Wilson v. Railway, 52 S.C. 537, 30 S.E. 406. In the former the report of the case shows that the trial judge practically took the cross-examination of some of the witnesses away from the solicitor, and showed clearly, by the questions he asked, his opinion as to the weight to be given to the testimony. In passing upon an exception upon that ground, the court said: "While such a course on the part of the...