State v. Brown
| Decision Date | 03 March 1916 |
| Docket Number | 9305. |
| Citation | 88 S.E. 21,103 S.C. 437 |
| Parties | STATE v. BROWN ET AL. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Berkeley County; S.W G. Shipp, Judge.
Washington J. Brown and another were convicted of arson, and they appeal. Reversed and remanded, with directions to be discharged unless held on some other charge .
Stoney & Cordes and J. D. E. Meyer, Jr., all of Charleston, for appellants.
P. T Hildebrand, G. B. Davis, and W. C. Wolfe, all of Orangeburg for the State.
This is an indictment for statutory arson, i. e., the burning of a barn. Mr. McNair, who for the purposes of this case was the owner of the barn, had a lawsuit with the father and sister of the defendants. There is evidence that the defendants were offended with Mr. McNair as the result of the lawsuit. The suit was about a mule which Mr. McNair took from these relatives of the defendants. One of the defendants is said to have remarked that the mule would do Mr. McNair no good. One of the defendants is also said to have remarked that he would not be surprised if a barn should be burned and he be accused of it. The very night of the day upon which the case was determined the barn was burned. The tracks of three people were discovered near the place where the barn had been burned. Dogs were put on these tracks. These dogs went to where one of the defendants was under arrest. The other defendant rode up to the place where a crowd was assembled, and when he got on the ground the dogs went up to him. The witness who was in charge of the dogs testified that the dogs told him that these were the men they had been tracking. The defendants were convicted with a recommendation to mercy. From this judgment of conviction, the defendants appealed, with eight exceptions. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth exceptions include matters of fact with which this court cannot deal, and they are overruled. The remaining exceptions raise three questions:
(1) Did his honor err in refusing to direct a verdict for the defendants at the close of the state's testimony?
(2) Did his honor err in refusing to direct a verdict for the defendants at the close of all the testimony?
(3) Did his honor err in admitting the evidence of the conduct of the dogs in following the tracks?
I. Did his honor err in refusing to direct a verdict for the defendants at the close of the testimony for the state? Before a defendant can be required to go into his defense, it is necessary that there shall be some proof of the corpus delicti. If there be no evidence to prove the corpus delicti, the defendant is entitled to a verdict of not guilty. The respondent claims that the proof of the corpus delicti is a question of fact, and is for the jury, and this court cannot consider the question, and cites State v. Martin, 47 S.C. 67, 25 S.E. 113, as authority. The Martin Case does not go so far. In the Martin Case the question was not, Was there any evidence? but, Was there sufficient evidence? The sufficiency of evidence was, of course, a question for the jury. The Martin Case states the true rule when it says (page 71 of 47 S. C., page 115 of 25 S. E.):
So in a case of arson the corpus delicti consists of two elements the burned house, and the criminal act of another in causing the burning. If there is no evidence of either, the defendants are entitled to an acquittal, and he is entitled to an acquittal as a matter of law. In the Martin Case a body was found in the remains of a burned building. A part of the head sufficient to cause death was cut off by a sharp instrument. The body was about the size of the alleged victim. Articles of personal property were found near the body, identified as the property of the alleged victim, and unburned pieces of cloth, resembling the clothing worn by him just before his disappearance. There were circumstances from which the jury might find that the body found was the body of some one who had been feloniously killed, and that the person killed was...
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