State v. Jeffcoat

• Decision Date: 08 February 1899
• Citation: 32 S.E. 298,54 S.C. 196
• Parties: STATE. v. JEFFCOAT et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

32 S.E. 298

(54 S.C. 196)

STATE.

v.JEFFCOAT et al.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Feb. 8, 1899.

Indictment — Selling Intoxicating Liquors — Statement of Offense—Constitutional Law—Surplusage.

1. Act March 6, 1896, § 43 (22 St. at Large, p. 148), providing that indictments for the sale of intoxicating liquors may charge a series of sales on the same day or on divers days to one or to different persons, naming one, and stating the others to be unknown, is repugnant to Const. 1895, art. 1, § 18, requiring one accused of crime to be fully informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.

2. An indictment for selling intoxicating liq-uors which charges a complete offense is not in-valid because, in addition thereto, it charges rales to divers other persons unknown to the grand jury, such averment being surplusage, which may either be stricken or disregarded.

Appeal from general sessions circuit court of Lexington county; George W. Gage, Judge.

Izlar Jeffcoat and another were indicted for selling intoxicating liquors, and from an order quashing the first count of the Indictment the state appeals. Reversed.

J. Wm. Thurmond, for the State.

P. H.Nelson and G. T. Graham, for respondents.

POPE, J. The circuit judge, when this case was called for trial, on the motion of respondents' attorneys, granted an order quashing the first count in the indictment. The state now appeals from this order. The first count of the indictment was in this language: "That Izlar Jeffcoat and Bill Jeffcoat, * * * on the first day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, and on divers other days, both before and since that day, up to the taking of this inquisition, willfully and unlawfully did sell, barter, exchange, and deliver to one Richard Peel, and to divers other persons to the jurors aforesaid unknown, spirituous, malt, and other liquors containing alcohol and used as a beverage, to wit, one gill molasses rum, for 5 cents, against the form of the statute in such cases made and provided, and against, ' etc The contention of the appellant is that by the use of the words in the count in question, "and to divers other persons to the jurors aforesaid unknown, " said count was in accord with the provisions of the forty-third section of the act of the general assembly entitled "An act to provide for the election of the state board of control, and to further regulate the sale, use, " etc., "of intoxicating and alcoholic liquors or liquids, " etc. Approved March 6, 1896. See 22 St. at Large, pp. 123-149. The language of the section (43) is as follows: "That in any indictment for the sale of intoxicating liquors it shall be competent to charge a series of sales on the same day or on divers days up to the finding of the true bill to one person or to different persons, naming one and stating the others to be unknown, in the same count as was formerly the practice in indictments for retailing liquors without license in this state, and the prosecuting officer shall not be required to elect which particular sale he will rely on, but may offer proof of all, and proof of any one of all the sales will sustain the verdict. * * *" This court, in State v. May, 45 S. C. 512, 23 S. E. 513, held that the words "and to divers other persons" might be stricken out of any count where they occur as surplusage. The appellant, however, insists that the foregoing case was decided just after the constitution of 1895 was adopted, and before the passage of the act of 1896, quoted above, as to its forty-third section. It is claimed by appellant that the language of the constitution of 1868, under which State v. May was decided, is quite distinct from the language of the last constitution. Let us see if there is any virtue in this position.

In section 13 of article 1 of the constitution of 1868 these words occur: "No person shall be held to answer for any crime or offense until the same is fully, fairly, plainly, substantially and formally described to him." It is...