State v. Beadon

• Decision Date: 07 April 1882
• Citation: 17 S.C. 55
• Parties: STATE v. BEADON.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

17 S.C. 55

STATE v. BEADON.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

April 7, 1882

1. State v. McKettrick , 14 S. C. 347, approved and followed.

2. An indictment in the Court of General Sessions for aggravated assault and battery should not simply characterize the offence as aggravated, but should state the matter which makes the aggravation.

3. The indictment charged in its first count an assault and battery with a shovel with intent to kill, and in its second count an assault and battery with a shovel, and the verdict was " guilty of an aggravated assault and battery." Held , that the verdict might be referred to either count, and was a conviction of an offence charged in the indictment and within the jurisdiction of the Court of General Sessions.

Before HUDSON, J., Charleston, November, 1881.

Indictment against Edward Beadon. The report of the presiding judge was as follows: This indictment shows on its face jurisdiction in the Court of General Sessions, and concludes contra formam Statuti . The finding of the jury may be referred to either count of the indictment; to the first count, ignoring the attempt to kill, or to the second count simply. In either view it is sustained by a good count. Hence I declined the motion in arrest of judgment.

Mr S. J. Lee , for appellant.

Mr Solicitor Jervey , contra.

OPINION

Mr JUSTICE MCGOWAN.

This was a prosecution for assault and battery. The indictment contained two counts. The first charged that the defendant committed an assault and battery upon one Caesar Dunning " with a deadly weapon, viz., a shovel, with intent to kill." The second simply charged an assault and battery with a shovel, in the usual form, without the intent to kill. The jury found the defendant " guilty of an aggravated assault and battery," who moved in arrest of judgment and, that being overruled, appeals to this court upon the following exceptions:

I. " Because his Honor erred in refusing to arrest the judgment on the ground that the indictment is fatally defective in that it does not charge the accused with committing an assault and battery of an aggravated nature.

II. Because his Honor erred in refusing to arrest the judgment on the ground that the verdict of the jury finds the defendant ‘ guilty of an aggravated assault and battery,’ of which offence the Court of General Sessions had no jurisdiction as appears on the face of the indictment."

We do not understand the point of the second exception, as the jury had the right to find the defendant guilty of " an aggravated assault and battery," unless it may be upon the view that the indictment did not sufficiently charge an offence of that character and therefore there was nothing to support the verdict. Assuming that to be the point made, the only question in the case is, whether the indictment contained the charge of an assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.

Under our constitution and laws the offence of assault and battery is divided into two classes: Those which are not of a...