State v. Clark

• Decision Date: 11 November 1924
• Docket Number: 11603.
• Citation: 125 S.E. 297,130 S.C. 149
• Parties: STATE v. CLARK.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

125 S.E. 297

130 S.C. 149

STATE v. CLARK.

No. 11603.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

November 11, 1924

Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Florence County; John S. Wilson, Judge.

Howard S. Clark was sentenced for murder on plea of guilty, and from an order refusing his motion for a new trial on the ground of after-discovered evidence, he appeals. Affirmed.

Kelley & Hinds, of Kingstree, for appellant.

L. M Gasque, Sol., of Marion, for the State.

COTHRAN J.

This is an appeal from an order of his honor Judge Wilson refusing the defendant's motion for a new trial upon the ground of after-discovered evidence.

The situation is a most unusual one. The defendant was tried before his honor, Judge Shipp, and a jury, at the June term 1914, of the court of general sessions for Florence county charged with the murder of his wife. At the conclusion of the evidence for the state, the counsel for the defendant, without offering any evidence, announced that they would consent to a verdict of guilty with recommendation to mercy. This was done with the approval of the defendant, as a matter of course. The state consented to the proposal, which doubtless had already in conference been agreed to, and the jury rendered a verdict accordingly The defendant was thereupon sentenced to life imprisonment in the state penitentiary where he has been since confined.

The main item of after-discovered evidence is the substance of an affidavit of Dr. J. G. McMaster, a physician, who had been called in upon the discovery of the dead body of Mrs. Clark which lay upon the bed with a pistol shot wound in her right temple. From various circumstances which he details, Dr. McMaster is very positive in his conviction that the case was one of suicide. He testified at the coroner's inquest, and was in the court room during the trial of the case, obviously as a witness for the defendant, but was not called upon by the state; the defendant, as stated, offered no testimony. It is manifest from the affidavits of Mr. D. Gordon Baker, a former senator from Florence county, and an attorney of the highest character, personally known to the members of this court, and of Hon. E. C. Dennis, now gracing with dignity and ability the circuit bench of this state, both of whom were associated with the solicitor in the prosecution of the case, that all of the facts and deductions contained in the affidavit of Dr. McMaster were...