State v. Arnold

• Decision Date: 03 July 1896
• Citation: 24 S.E. 926,47 S.C. 9
• Parties: STATE v. ARNOLD.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

24 S.E. 926

47 S.C. 9

STATE v. ARNOLD.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

July 3, 1896

Appeal from general sessions circuit court of Abbeville county Earle, Judge.

Charles Arnold was convicted of murder, and appeals. Affirmed.

The grounds of appeal were: "(1) Because the presiding judge erred in allowing the witness Lucy Wardlaw to testify to a declaration of George Merryweather, the deceased, alleged to have been made to her by him 10 minutes after he was shot, as to the person who shot him, said declaration being hearsay and not a part of the res gestæ, upon which ground it was admitted by the judge. (2) Because the presiding judge erred in allowing the witness Janie Wardlaw, while being examined for the state, over the objection of the defendant, to testify as to an alleged declaration made by the deceased George Merryweather, to Lucy Wardlaw, after he was shot. (4) Because the judge erred in refusing to grant the defendant a new trial, on the ground that it was error in the court to allow the testimony of the witnesses Lucy Wardlaw and Janie Wardlaw as to the alleged declaration of George Merryweather to be submitted to the jury. (5) Because the testimony of Lucy Wardlaw showed that the alleged declaration of George Merryweather, the deceased, was made to her 10 minutes after he was shot, some distance from the scene of the shooting and was made in reply to a question of the witness to him, and was not a part of the res gestæ, and the presiding judge erred in holding that said declaration was a part of the res gestæ, and admissible as such."

Graydon & Graydon, for appellant.

M. F. Ansel, for the State.

POPE J.

On the 19th day of November, 1895, one George Merryweather was shot, from which wound he almost immediately thereafter died. The defendant, Charles Arnold, was at the January, 1896, term of the court of general sessions for Abbeville county, in this state, tried before Judge Earle and a jury, for having murdered said deceased. He was found guilty of murder, but recommended to the mercy of the court. Whereupon he was sentenced to imprisonment for life at hard labor in the state penitentiary. His appeal to this court is based upon alleged errors of the circuit judge in the admission of certain testimony, in his refusal to strike out said testimony, and in his refusal to grant a new trial because such testimony was not admissible. Let the grounds of appeal be reported. Thus it appears that the appeal is based upon the question of the competency of certain testimony.

Was such testimony competent? The underlying history of this tragedy, as appears from the record, seems to be this Charles Arnold, although a married man, seems for some years to have maintained a criminal intimacy with one Lucy Wardlaw, both parties belonging to the African race, and as the result of such relations she bore him two children. The deceased, George Merryweather, had been paying attention to said Lucy Wardlaw with a view to marriage. Indeed, such suit of the deceased had gone so far that an engagement of marriage subsisted between them. These circumstances seems to have stirred Charles Arnold's nature into a most deadly jealousy, if we are to judge the same from the many threats of death to both the deceased and Lucy Wardlaw, in case she tolerated the attentions of Merryweather, or in the event of their marriage. So deeply was Arnold stirred by this feeling of jealousy, he was unmoved when the poor woman explained to him that she was weary of her life of sin, and wished to become a reputable wife. So, on the night of the 19th...