State v. Jennings
| Decision Date | 13 May 1931 |
| Docket Number | 13138. |
| Citation | 158 S.E. 687,160 S.C. 348 |
| Parties | STATE v. JENNINGS. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Sumter County; C. C Featherstone, Judge.
Frank E. Jennings was convicted of being an accessory before the fact to a murder, and he appeals.
Affirmed.
See also, 158 S.C. 422, 155 S.E. 621.
L. D Jennings, of Sumter, for appellant.
Frank A. McLeod, Sol., and R. D. Epps, both of Sumter, for the State.
The appellant was convicted on an indictment which charged him with being accessory before the fact to the murder of Ezra Hodge. The specific charge was that he incited, hired, commanded, and procured Caesar Cockrell to do the murder.
From a verdict of guilty with recommendation to the mercy of the court, the sentence of life imprisonment, and the refusal of motion for new trial, the defendant appeals on five grounds.
His first exception charges that the trial judge erred in permitting Caesar Cockrell to testify that he and the defendant were engaged "in making liquor"; that such testimony prejudiced the cause of defendant in the eyes of the jury. The theory of the prosecution was that defendant induced Cockrell to kill Hodge because Hodge had reported the still of defendant and the witness to the officers of the law, who destroyed it. It was competent to prove the motive of defendant, in other words, to show that he had a grudge against Hodge, as proof of malice.
There are authorities other than those cited by state's counsel to sustain this view. A late case is that of State v. Thomas, 159 S.C. 76, 156 S.E. 169, February 14, 1931.
The second exception alleges that it was error for the trial judge to fail to charge the law of manslaughter. When the judge came to charge the jury, he asked defense counsel if he wished the court to charge the law of manslaughter, to which inquiry counsel replied that he did not wish it charged. Counsel now frankly admits this, but he thinks that he was mistaken in the view of the law which he then took. He thinks the law of manslaughter should have been charged, and he asks that his error shall not be held against appellant. The charge against appellant was that he was accessory before the fact to the murder of Hodge by Cockrell.
We take it to be established law in this state that there can be no accessory before the fact to manslaughter. The very nature of that offense precludes the idea that there can be an accessory before the fact to the deed. In the case of State v. Putnam, 18 S.C. 175, 44 Am. Rep. 569, it is said: "It is conceded that there can be no accessories before the fact in manslaughter."
This exception and the third are effectually disposed of by the opinion of this court in the case of State v. Du Rant, 87 S.C. 532, 70 S.E. 306, 307, where the same assignment of error was laid against the judge who presided at that trial. There it is said: ...
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