State v. Crenshaw, No. 21189

• Court: United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina
• Writing for the Court: JOSPEH R. MOSS; LEWIS
• Citation: 274 S.C. 475,266 S.E.2d 61
• Parties: The STATE, Respondent, v. Donald Ray CRENSHAW, Samuel (NMN) Jones, and Jimmie Ligon, Defendants, of whom Donald Ray Crenshaw and Jimmie Ligon are Appellants.
• Decision Date: 09 April 1980
• Docket Number: No. 21189

Page 61

266 S.E.2d 61 274 S.C. 475 The STATE, Respondent,
v.
Donald Ray CRENSHAW, Samuel (NMN) Jones, and Jimmie Ligon, Defendants,
of whom Donald Ray Crenshaw and Jimmie Ligon are Appellants. No. 21189. Supreme Court of South Carolina. April 9, 1980.

Page 62

[274 S.C. 476] Miley, Macaulay & Boggs, Walhalla, for appellant Crenshaw.

Gamble & Galloway, Anderson, for appellant Ligon.

Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod and Asst. Attys. Gen. Brian P. Gibbes and Sally G. Young, Columbia and Sol. Luther Henry Raines, II, Anderson, for respondent.

JOSPEH R. MOSS, Acting Associate Justice:

Appellants Crenshaw and Ligon were each convicted of bribery and sentenced to five years imprisonment, suspended upon the service of eighteen months and five years probation. We affirm.

[274 S.C. 477] Appellants, who were police officers for the City of Seneca, were arrested and charged with bribery, blackmail, and criminal conspiracy for extorting $5,000 from Dr. John F. Stockfisch in exchange for promises to drop criminal charges against his son, John Richard Stockfisch (Stockfisch). The jury found appellants innocent of all charges except bribery, from which conviction this appeal arises.

Appellant first asserts that the indictment failed to charge the crime of bribery substantially in the language of the statute § 16-9-220 Code of Laws of South Carolina (1976). It is further asserted that the indictment does not set forth with sufficient certainty and particularity how appellants could have exercised their judgments as police officers in order that the criminal charges against Stockfisch be dropped or dismissed. This is without merit.

An indictment is adequate if the offense is stated with sufficient certainty and particularity to enable the court to know what judgment to pronounce, the defendant to know what he is called upon to answer, and acquittal or conviction to be placed in bar to any subsequent conviction. State v. Solomon, 245 S.C. 550, 141 S.E.2d 818 (1965), appeal dismissed 382 U.S. 204, 86 S.Ct. 396, 15 L.Ed.2d 270 (1965). As the indictment bears the specific code section on its face and there was lengthy discussion concerning that code section throughout the trial, appellants obviously knew for what crime they were being prosecuted. Further, an indictment charging a statutory crime need not use the precise language of the statute in describing the offense, if the words used are equivalent to those employed by the statute, Livingston v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 830, 36 S.E.2d 561 (1946), as was the case in this instance.

Appellants next contend that their convictions cannot be upheld since the term "officer" as used in section 16-9-220 is inapplicable to policemen, who are [274 S.C. 478] instead "employees." This Court held in Sanders v. Belue, 78 S.C. 171, 174, 58 S.E. 762, 763 (1907) that:

One who is charged by law with duties involving an exercise of some part of the sovereign power, either small or great, in the performance of which the public is concerned, and which are continuing, and not occasional or intermittent, is a public officer. Conversely, one who merely performs the duties required of him by persons employing...