State v. Hanahan

• Decision Date: 02 August 1918
• Docket Number: 10066.
• Citation: 96 S.E. 667,111 S.C. 58
• Parties: STATE v. HANAHAN ET AL.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

96 S.E. 667

111 S.C. 58

STATE v. HANAHAN ET AL.

No. 10066.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

August 2, 1918

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Richland County; R. W Memminger, Judge.

J. L Hanahan and K. C. Hardin were convicted of manslaughter and they appeal. Affirmed.

The charge of the court and the exceptions thereto, referred to in the opinion, are as follows:

"Judge's Charge.

The Court: Now, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury, these two defendants stand indicted before you on the charge of manslaughter. Now, manslaughter in the Code is defined to be the unlawful killing of a human being, and done without malice, either express or implied.

As I stated to you a few days ago, an indisposition of the court has very much weakened it and hampered it in laying down these principles of law by which you are to be governed in the trial of this case. But we are here engaged in an important inquiry in which the principles of law are somewhat unusual. Therefore the court feels the importance of laying them fairly and squarely before you, so that you can hear them distinctly and understand exactly what is meant.

Now this defendant, as I said to you--these defendants--are charged with manslaughter, which is defined in our Criminal Code in the most general form-- that is, to include every possible form of manslaughter; and that definition is the unlawful killing of a human being and done without malice, express or implied. Now, ordinarily we link the idea of manslaughter with killings in sudden heat and passion, where the killing is done in sudden heat and passion and upon sufficient legal provocation; that is, where the party doing the killing intends to kill, but does it upon provocation, such provocation as the law recognizes and extenuates the killing; although he intended to kill, it gives him the benefit of extenuating circumstances, such as where he is struck a blow, where one man strikes another a blow, and, acting under the influence of provocation engendered by that blow, the other strikes back or shoots back or cuts back and kills. There, although he intended to kill, had the deliberate intention of killing and did kill, yet still the law does not call that murder, but only manslaughter, giving him the benefit of the provocation which has been engendered by the blow.

Now, in this case we haven't that idea to consider at all. We have this further form of manslaughter equally included in the definition, the general definition; that is, what is commonly known as involuntary manslaughter, where the party or parties who did the killing did not intend to kill, had no malice in their hearts, did not deliberately intend to kill anybody, but, nevertheless, were engaged in some unlawful act, as the result of which death resulted; and the law says there that although the party did not intend to kill, yet still he was doing some unlawful act from which death resulted as a proximate cause, and that, therefore, that comes under the head of an unlawful killing, because it was done--it came about as the proximate result of an unlawful act.

Now, we strike those cases, gentlemen, most frequently in the cases of handling deadly weapons, and we find a number of them in the books along that line, where a man is handling a deadly weapon in a careless manner, not intending to kill anybody at all, harboring no malice or grudge against any one, but in the careless handling of that weapon the weapon goes off and death results. Now, those are typical cases of what we call involuntary manslaughter--that is, the commission of an unlawful act from which death results as a proximate result. Now, in our law books we have had a number of those cases, and there is a statute in our statute books which says that to point a weapon at another person, loaded or unloaded, is an unlawful act and made punishable under the law, because so many killings resulted, as we all know, from the pointing of weapons at other people not supposed to be loaded, and they went off and killed somebody; so if anybody, under the law as it is now, points a weapon at another person, not believing it to be loaded, in a careless manner, and death resulted from that, he would be guilty of involuntary manslaughter, the unlawful act being the pointing of the weapon at the person, and the result consisting of that unlawful act followed by killing as a proximate result thereof.

Now, the courts have held--at first the idea was that unless there was gross carelessness in the handling of the deadly weapon or in the use of some instrumentality which would bring about death and which was calculated, if negligently operated, to bring about death, originally the idea was that it had to be gross carelessness before you would attach a penalty of manslaughter to death resulting as a proximate cause; but our Supreme Court in recent cases has most distinctly held that it does not have to be gross carelessness, that mere negligence is enough; that if a man is guilty of negligence in the handling of a dangerous instrumentality, and death results from that negligence as a proximate result thereof, he is held guilty of manslaughter. Now, I have a case right here, gentlemen. I want this idea to be clearly understood by you. There are only a few words to be read from the book. These are the few words, gentlemen, from the case I want you to understand, that 'One guilty only of ordinary negligence in handling a pistol, which results in the death of a bystander, may be convicted of involuntary manslaughter.' This is what the court says: 'This is an appeal from the sentence imposed upon the defendant, who was convicted of manslaughter. The question is whether a person was subject to conviction for involuntary manslaughter, when he is only guilty of ordinary negligence in handling a pistol which results in the killing a bystander. The following cases show that the exceptions raising this question cannot be sustained.' So that that principle, we can say, is formally and absolutely established in our courts.

Now, the idea that the jury will have to get impressed on them is this, to understand what negligence is. It is the failure to exercise due care under all of the facts and circumstances of the situation; it is doing something which a person of--a reasonably prudent person would not have done, or failing to do something which a reasonably prudent person would have done under the circumstances. That is what negligence is.

Now, gentlemen, just negligence itself, it is not enough to cause any punishment or any injury to be recovered for based upon it, but the negligence, in order to be held the cause of anything--such as in this case it is claimed that it was the cause of the death of this boy--the death must have been the proximate result of that negligence. So you will want to understand what that means. Now, in our statutes, and in the ordinances of the city of Columbia, as you have heard stated by the lawyers, the speed limit for automobiles is fifteen miles an hour, and the law says that if a person runs beyond that speed he runs negligently--a case of negligence of itself is made out if he runs beyond that speed. Now, of course, if he only did that, that would be a violation of the city ordinance; but if as a result or proximate cause of running beyond that rate of speed he kills somebody, why there, then, you would have a case, gentlemen, of what we call involuntary manslaughter as resulting from negligence, the law fixing negligence upon a person who goes beyond the rate of speed allowed by the ordinance or the state statute, provided that negligence was the proximate cause of it.

Now, the presumption of the thing is along this idea; for instance, in one of the cases in our books, one in which the law requires a locomotive to carry a headlight, and the failure to carry a headlight is negligence on the part of the locomotive engineer, and a man in one of the cases was going down a railroad track at night and he looked and saw the railroad train coming, it was a bright moonlight night, and he looked and saw it, and he took the chances of getting across the track before the train could hit him; it turned out in the case that the railroad train did not have any light, which, of course, was negligence; but it was held, gentlemen, in that case, and it is undoubtedly plain for any one, that it could not be said that the failure to have the light could be the proximate cause of the man's injury, because the object of the light was to give notice of the approach of the train, and that object had been accomplished, as the man had seen it approaching; therefore it could not be said that the failure to have the light was the proximate cause of the injury. So you see there may be negligence, a party may be guilty of a negligent act, but, unless it is the proximate cause of bringing about the injury under investigation, that negligence does not obtain, nor is it to be considered in any way, shape, or form.

Now, it is claimed under this indictment that the death of this boy was brought about by both of these men being guilty of negligence, and the negligence of each contributing to bring about the boy's death as a proximate cause of it.

Now, the law is this, gentlemen, if one person inflicts upon another such injury as death will surely result, even in a few minutes of time after the injury is inflicted, and another person comes along and inflicts another injury on that person, on the injured person, which even by a moment or instant of time hastens the death caused by the previous injury, he becomes a participant in bringing about the death, and is as guilty as the man who inflicted the first injury from which death would have resulted.

Now upon the state throughout this whole inquiry,...