State v. Blakeney

• Decision Date: 13 June 1890
• Citation: 33 S.C. 111,11 S.E. 637
• Parties: State. v. Blakeney.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

11 S.E. 637

33 S.C. 111

State.

v.Blakeney.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

June 13, 1890.

Murder—Indictment.

1. Failure to allege the place of death of deceased in an indictment for murder is a fatal defect, which cannot be cured by amendment, under Act S. C. 1887, p. 830, § 5, and is ground for quashing the indictment or arresting judgment on motion.

2. Where an indictment alleges that a mortal wound was inflicted on deceased on a certain day, in a specified county and state, from which he soon afterwards died, and this is followed by an allegation that accused did " then and there, " feloniously, etc., kill and murder deceased, and no other place has been previously mentioned, the place of the death is sufficiently alleged.

Appeal from general sessions circuit couit of Chesterfield county; Witherspoon, Judge.

W. L. T. Prince and Edward Mclver, for appellant.

J. M. Johnson, for the State.

Simpson, C. J. At the court of general sessions for Chesterfield county, February term, 1890, the appellant was arraigned and put upon trial under an indictment of which the following is a copy, to-wit omitting the formal part: "The jurors of and for the county aforesaid, in the state aforesaid, upon their oath present that John Threatt, James Blakeney, and Allen Blakeney, on the 16th day November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine, with force and arms, at Chesterfield, in the county of Chesterfield, and state of South Carolina, in and upon Hugh Blakeney, alias Hugh Mangum, feloniously, willfully, and of their malice aforethought, with a pistol loaded with gunpowder and a leaden bullet, did shoot and discharge at and against and wound, giving to the said Hugh Blakeney, alias Hugh Mangum, thereby, in and upon the body of him, the said Hugh Blakeney, alias Hugh Mangum, one mortal wound, of which said mortal wound the said Hugh Blakeney, alias Hugh Mangum, soon thereafter died. * * * And so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that John Threatt, James Blakeney, and Allen Blakeney, him, the said Hugh Blakeney, alias Hugh Mangum, then and there, in the manner and by the means aforesaid, feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought, did kill and murder, against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state aforesaid. " The accused having no counsel, his honor, the presiding judge, assigned Mr. "W. L. T. Prince and Mr. Edward McIver to his defense; and these counsel, after the jury had been sworn, having discovered, as they supposed, that the place of the death of the deceased had not been alleged in the indictment, moved to quash it on that ground. This motion was refused, because, in the opinion of his honor, it came too late, being made after the jury had been sworn. Section 2 of the act of 1887. But immediately the solicitor was granted leave to amend the indictment by inserting the place of the death, to-wit, Chesterfield county, which was done in the blank supra. The case then proceeded, when the accused was convicted; and, upon his being brought up for sentence, his counsel moved in arrest of judgment upon the ground that he had been convicted on a bill which had not been found by a grand jury, and on which he had not been arraigned. This motion was overruled, and the accused was sentenced to be hanged on April 4, 1890.

The appeal alleges error to the presiding judge (1) in refusing appellant's motion to quash the indictment; (2) in...