State v. Hughes
| Decision Date | 08 March 1900 |
| Parties | STATE v. HUGHES. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
CRIMINAL LAW—APPEAL AND ERROR—ORDERS APPEALABLE.
An interlocutory order, prejudicial to defendant, made during the trial of a person under an indictment, is not appealable until after sentence shall have been pronounced.
Appeal from general sessions circuit court of Greenville county; D. A. Townsend, Judge.
Mattie A. Hughes was indicted for murder. On the second trial, from the overruling of special pleas in bar, defendant appeals. Appeal dismissed.
A. H. Dean, B. M. Shuman, Geo. Johnstone, and McCullough & Martin, for appellant.
M. P. Ansel, J. A. Mooney, and Haynsworth, Parker & Patterson, for the State.
The defendant was indicted for the murder of her husband. A true bill was found on the indictment at the March term, 1899, and a trial had at the same time. The record was handed to the jury some timein the afternoon of Saturday, the 25th of March, 1899. During the nighttime said jury demanded of the bailiff who had them in charge that they be discharged because they could not agree. On Sunday morning the circuit judge presiding at the trial (Judge D. A. Townsend) came into court and directed that counsel for the state and defense be summoned. State attorneys waived an attendance. Hon. A. H. Dean, the senior counsel for the defense, however, came into court Some reference was made to the absence from the court room of the defendant, Mrs. Hughes, at this time. Leave to be so absent had been procured from the circuit judge after the jury had retired to the jury room on Saturday afternoon. The circuit judge announced that the jury would be brought into the court room. When the jury appeared and stated that they had not agreed upon a verdict, and when interrogated by the circuit judge as to their ability to reach a verdict, by their silence they manifested their inability to do so. Thereupon the circuit judge ordered a mistrial. The record was given up by the foreman of the jury to the clerk of court, and these words were indorsed on the record by this officer: At the May term, 1899. of the court of general sessions for Greenville county, upon the call of the case by his honor, Judge Gage, the defendant interposed a special plea in bar of the further prosecution, upon the two grounds that when Judge Townsend ordered a mistrial on March 26, 1899, in the absence from the court room of the defendant, such order, under article 1, § 17, article 1, § 18, and article 1, § 25, of our state constitution, operated to discharge this defendant from any further power in this court to try the defendant for the alleged murder of her husband, for which she was indicted, and also because such circuit judge (Townsend), when he so ordered a mistrial, virtually, in law, acquitted the defendant of such alleged murder. There being a disagreement as to the facts which occurred when the mistrial was ordered, affidavits were offered by each side; and after argument Judge Gage overruled the said special pleas, and the defendant appealed from his order overruling the same. The trial proceeded, resulting in a mistrial again.
The very first question which confronts this court is that raised by the state, and...
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State v. Rearick
...the Court applied the holding in McKettrick to dismiss as interlocutory an appeal of an order granting a mistrial. State v. Hughes , 56 S.C. 540, 35 S.E. 214 (1900). In so ruling, the Court explained:It is a bad practice, and generally condemned, to hear appeals by piecemeal, especially in ......
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State v. Isaac
...quash the indictment, and, when his motion is overruled, give notice of appeal from such ruling, and thereby stop the trial....56 S.C. 540, 35 S.E. 214, 215 (1900). The denial of a request for immunity under the Act is analogous to the denial of a motion to dismiss a criminal case on the gr......
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...105 S.E. 704 (1921); State v. Hill, 74 S.C. 415, 54 S.E. 614 (1906); State v. Timmons, 68 S.C. 258, 47 S.E. 140 (1904); State v. Hughes, 56 S.C. 540, 35 S.E. 214 (1900). Appellant, however, argues that this rule has been overruled by federal decisions which hold that appeals based on double......
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State v. McMillan
...State v. Hughes, 56 S.C. 540, 35 S.E. 214; State v. Byars, 79 S.C. 174, 60 S.E. 448; State v. Gellis, 158 S.C. 471, 155 S.E. 849. In State v. Hughes, supra, Mr. Justice Pope, after decisions in point, had this to say: "The appellant seeks to have an opinion from this court upon the question......