State v. Driggers

• Decision Date: 08 February 1910
• Citation: 66 S.E. 1042,84 S.C. 526
• Parties: STATE v. DRIGGERS.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

66 S.E. 1042

84 S.C. 526

STATE v. DRIGGERS.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

February 8, 1910

Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Clarendon County Ernest Gary, Judge.

J Frank Driggers was convicted of murder, and appeals. Affirmed.

Davis & Weinberg, for appellant. P. H. Stoll, Sol., and S. Oliver O'Bryan, for the State.

WOODS J.

The defendant, J. Frank Driggers, was convicted of the murder of his sister, Mrs. Boseman. As the verdict embraced a recommendation to mercy, the court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. There is no need to set out the evidence in its revolting details, for the questions made by the appeal will be sufficiently clear from a very brief statement of the undisputed facts.

The defendant and his sister, Mrs. Boseman, previous to the homicide had quarrelled about the balance claimed by Mrs Boseman to be due her on a trade of a horse and some cattle. On December 26, 1908, Henry Boseman, his wife, Mary Boseman and Frank Driggers, Jr., a young son of the defendant, went in a wagon to the home of defendant. They carried wine and gin, and the defendant already had liquor at the house. Boseman and young Driggers went hunting, leaving Mrs. Boseman with the defendant and his family. The evidence is conflicting as to the conduct of the defendant and his sister during the day. They both drank, and, after Boseman returned from the hunt, went out on the piazza, engaged in a violent quarrel, either striking or menacing each other. They were then separated, and Boseman induced his wife to get into the wagon with him. As they were leaving, there was a challenge to have satisfaction in the public road. The evidence is conflicting as to whether Boseman or the defendant offered the challenge. But, according to the evidence on both sides, after Boseman and his wife had started away in the wagon, the defendant sent his little daughter for the gun. On her return with the gun, he sent her back for another loaded shell, walked out of his house some distance to the road, and deliberately shot his sister to death. She had a gun in her lap, but made no effort to use it.

Assuming that the deceased during the day used all the profanity and was guilty of all the misconduct and violence to the defendant attributed to her by the members of his family, all that was at an end; and, after it was ended, the defendant pursued, and when in no peril whatever committed the homicide. It is too evident for discussion that the law of self-defense has no application to a homicide committed under such circumstances. There is no reason, therefore, to discuss the alleged errors in the charge on the subject of self-defense, for the defendant had no right to any instructions on that subject. The circuit judge nevertheless charged the law of self-defense as that plea was set up, and we are unable to discover any error in the charge. For the same reason, namely, that it was affirmatively shown beyond all controversy by the evidence offered by the defendant that he was in no peril whatever when he shot, there would have been no error in excluding testimony of Frank Driggers, Jr., as to the language used by the deceased in insisting that she would go to the house of the defendant. But the exception on this point was taken under a misapprehension, for the evidence was not excluded; the witness having testified: "She said, 'I am going to jump out and carry my gun with me, if you don't,' and I said, 'I will go, if you go.' Q. Did he drive in? A. Yes, sir."

The real defense was that the defendant at the time of the homicide was in such a state of delirium from excessive drink that he was irresponsible. In support of this defense, J. D Driggers, the brother of the defendant, gave this account of a visit to his house on the night of December 24th, before the homicide on the morning of the 26th December: "And, when I went into the house, I found him locked up in the house, the key in the door on the outside. I carried Dan Drigger in with me, and I wouldn't advance right on him. I saw him sitting in the corner of the house with his gun across his lap. I pushed the door half open, and I said, 'Frank, what in the world is the matter?' And he looked straight at me, and said, 'Is that Major?' And I said, 'Yes; this is Major,' and he said, 'What is the matter with you, Melvin Croton?' That is a colored man that lives near him." At this point the court stopped the witness, holding this declaration of the defendant to be in his own favor and incompetent. There is no doubt of the correctness of the general rule stated by the court, but we think on the issue of insanity the entire conduct of the defendant, including words spoken by him and the manner of his speech, is competent. Wild, foolish, or irrelevant speech is as much evidence of most forms of insanity as violent or unreasonable actions and unnatural appearance. One may be feigned as well as the others, and there is no reason for the rejection of one that would not apply with equal force to the others. Such speech of a party is not subject to the objection that it is a declaration of the defendant in his own favor, for evidence of it is not received as tending to prove any act or intention of the party, but merely as an indication of mental aberration or condition. No doubt there should be some preliminary evidence indicating to the court that the speech or conversation of the person accused is tendered in support of a substantial plea of insanity, and not for the purpose of getting in evidence the declarations of the defendant in his own favor. The authorities on the point are not unanimous, but such evidence was held admissible in People v. Nino, 149 N.Y. 317, 43 N.E. 853; McLean v. State, 16 Ala. 673; Norwood v. Marrow, 20 N.C. 578. It is true that the North Carolina court in the later case of State v. Vann, 82 N.C. 631, held such speech and conversation incompetent, but in the still more recent cases of McLeary v. Norment, 84 N.C. 235, the principle of Norwood v. Marrow, was reaffirmed. The defendant, however, was not injured by the ruling of the circuit judge on this point, for the evidence of his remarks to Driggers and also to the witness Lesesne had been adduced before the objection...