State v. Durant

• Decision Date: 22 February 1911
• Citation: 70 S.E. 306,87 S.C. 532
• Parties: STATE v. DU RANT.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

70 S.E. 306

87 S.C. 532

STATE v. DU RANT.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

February 22, 1911

Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Lee County; Geo. W Gage, Judge.

James R. Du Rant was convicted of assault and battery with intent to kill, and he appeals. Affirmed.

B Frank Kelley and M. L. Smith, for appellant. P. H. Stoll Sol., McLauchlin & Tatum, and Mcleod & Dennis, for the State.

WOODS J.

T. W. Privett, a policeman of the town of Bishopville, was shot near the store of the defendant, James R. Du Rant, on the night of the 2d day of December, 1908. The defendant was indicted, and on his trial was convicted of assault and battery with intent to kill; the verdict containing a recommendation to the mercy of the court.

A number of exceptions set out alleged errors in the admission of evidence that defendant's store had been searched for contraband liquor by policemen, that liquor had been found there, and that the defendant had been previously indicted for selling liquor. A short statement of the facts will make evident the competency of this evidence. Policeman Privett and Chief of Police Groom had gone to Du Rant's store for the purpose of arresting three negroes under a warrant charging them with selling whisky. According to the evidence on behalf of the defendant as well as that on behalf of the state, the defendant expressed to the policeman strong objection to their presence about his store and their surveillance of his business, and, claiming the sidewalk in front of his store to be his property, he ordered the officers to keep off of it. Privett testified that he was sitting in front of the store when defendant, without warning or provocation, came from the rear of the store and shot him. The defendant, on the other hand, testified that he had nothing to do with the shooting, and he and two other witnesses testified that he was inside the store when the shooting was heard outside. From this statement it is clear that the sole issue in the case was whether the shot which wounded the policeman was fired by the defendant or some other person, and it is equally clear that on this issue of fact the evidence of the search by policemen of defendant's premises, the finding of liquor there, the indictment of defendant for selling liquor, his objections to the presence of the officers at his store, and his demand that they should stay away, was competent, because it tended to show the animus of the defendant towards officers watching his place of business, and to show motive for the shooting. State v. Smith, 12 Rich. Law, 430; State v. Thrailkill, 71 S.C. 140, 50 S.E. 551; Id., 73 S.C. 316, 53 S.E. 482.

The main ground of the appeal is that the circuit judge did not in his charge "declare the law," as required by the Constitution, in that he did not define the crimes of "assault and battery," "assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature," and "assault and battery with intent to kill," and did not state the legal meaning of the term "malice" used in the charge. The following extract from the charge contains all that was said by the circuit judge in the nature of definition of crime: "But there are two things charged: That he did the shooting,...