State v. Martin
| Decision Date | 29 December 1922 |
| Docket Number | 10999. |
| Parties | STATE v. MARTIN. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Cherokee County Thomas S. Sease, Judge.
Edley Martin was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals. Reversed, and remanded for a new trial.
The charge to the jury of Judge Sease here follows:
Mr Foreman, and Gentlemen of the Jury: You must give the state and the defendant a fair and impartial trial according to the law and the evidence. You are the sole judges of the credibility of the witnesses and the force and effect to be given to their testimony. It is my duty to declare the law and your duty to find the facts and apply them to the law as the court gives it to you. You must take the law from the court; you cannot make any law of your own.
I charge you it is the law that you cannot write a verdict of "Guilty" in this case unless you are satisfied of the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. You must give the defendant the benefit of any and every reasonable doubt that may arise in the consideration of the case. Reasonable doubt is what the words indicate--a doubt for which you can give a reason, not a flimsy or fanciful doubt, but a reasonable doubt arising out of the testimony. If you have a reasonable doubt on the whole case, solve it in behalf of the defendant, and write a verdict of "Not Guilty." If you have no reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant, on the whole case, then write a verdict of "Guilty." In a case of this kind the presumption is that the defendant is innocent, and that presumption stays with him throughout the whole trial of the case until you 12 men are satisfied of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
You will note this indictment charges the defendant with "murder." Such a charge includes what is known as voluntary manslaughter, and also involuntary manslaughter. I gather from the state's representative that the state does not desire a verdict of "Guilty of murder." Nor does the state contend for a verdict of "Guilty of voluntary manslaughter." The contention of the state here is that he is guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Involuntary manslaughter presumes the unintentional killing of a human being unlawfully. There is no contention here that the defendant intentionally caused the death. The contention on the part of the state in this case, according to the indictment, is that this defendant is guilty of involuntary manslaughter. That contention is based upon negligence therefore, you will bear with me while I instruct you what negligence is. While the statute law of the state of South Carolina is to some extent regulative of or attempts to regulate the operation of automobiles on the public highway, there is an additional law supplementary to it, known as the "common law"; that is, where a person is found to be negligent, outside of any connection with the statute that I will read to you later, and the death of another person is caused by such negligence, that is the kind of negligence that is involved in involuntary manslaughter. Negligence is the want of due care--emphasizing the word "due"--that is, the care that is due under all the circumstances surrounding the person whose conduct you have under investigation. In this case you have under investigation the conduct of the defendant at the time of the alleged homicide. Negligence is doing that which a person of ordinary prudence and care would not have done, or leaving undone what a person of ordinary prudence and care would not have left undone under all the circumstances surrounding the person whose conduct you have under investigation. The law erects as the standard a man of ordinary prudence and care. Not the most careful or the most careless person, but a person of ordinary prudence and care. Negligence is the want of ordinary care--the want of that care a man of ordinary prudence and care would have observed under all the circumstances surrounding the situation as you find that it existed from the testimony. If you find that the defendant measured up to the standard of a man of ordinary prudence and care in such situation as you find to have existed from the testimony, he is guilty of no offense. If you find that he failed to observe the prudence and care that a man of ordinary prudence and care would have observed under all the circumstances surrounding the situation as you find it to have been at the time and place of the alleged homicide and also find that such failure to observe due care was the proximate cause of the death of the deceased, then you will find him guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Negligence is the unintentional failure to observe due care--the unconscious failure to observe due care. Negligence is the inadvertent failure to observe due care; that is, if you find that a person fails to advert to the duty of observing due care, and thereby fails to perform that duty, that is negligence, and, if you find that a person is guilty of that negligence, and that negligence is the direct and proximate cause of the death of the deceased, then that person would be guilty of involuntary manslaughter. But, if you find that he observed due care, and measured up to the standard of a man of ordinary prudence and care, there would be no negligence in such a case, and your verdict would be "Not guilty."
Every person's rights are equal before the law; whether an under-aged person, or minor, or an old man, whether a pedestrian or driver of an automobile, or other vehicle, their rights are all equal before the law. I charge you that a person has a right to cross the highway. There is no duty upon the parent to be with it all the time. I charge you that the negligence of the parent, if there was any, would be no defense, if the child was killed by the negligence of the defendant.
Where a person, without any fault on his part, is confronted with a sudden emergency, the law would measure his conduct accordingly, but the law also requires that due care shall be used to keep the emergency from arising.
I charge you that a man who drives an automobile upon the public highway has the duty to keep a lookout--a reasonable lookout--such as a man of ordinary prudence and care would keep.
Now, there are certain rules and regulations adopted by the statute law which a person who drives a motor vehicle must observe:
First, I charge you that, if a man driving an automobile violates the statute law of the state, that is negligence per se, or negligence in itself. If that negligence is the direct and proximate cause of the death of a person using the highway, then that would be a case of involuntary manslaughter.
Now, what is the statute law that attempts to regulate automobile traffic in this state? I desire to read to you sections 601, 602, and 606 of the Statutes, because that is the law of the land:
You will remember it would make no difference how negligent a person is and how many statutes he may violate, if such was not the proximate cause of the death or the injury complained of. In such a case there could be no negligence so far as the law is concerned, or, rather, no offense.
The negligence the state is called upon to prove in this case is that the defendant was not only guilty of negligence, but that it was the direct, proximate, and efficient cause of the death of the child. For example only, if a man is driving an automobile without lights in the daytime, and injury and damage is caused, the absence of lights, while it is a violation of the statute law, would not be the proximate cause of the alleged damage or injury, you see. Negligence is a relative term, and what might be negligence under one set of circumstances might be due care under a different set of circumstances. When a man runs by or through a place where people are expected to be passing and repassing, he must under the law have his car under control; that is, he must use due care in approaching such place or places. Again, what might be due care in the country where people are not expected to be passing and repassing would be negligence in town where people are frequently passing and thickly settled, and a man with reason would expect them to be passing and repassing constantly.
The defendant's counsel asks me to charge you the following propo...
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State v. Woods
...that there are reasonable grounds for supposing that the jury might have been misled to the prejudice of the appellant. State v. Martin, 122 S.C. 286, 115 S.E. 252; Boggero v. Railroad Co., 64 S.C. 104, 41 S.E. Sharpton v. Railroad Co., 72 S.C. 162, 51 S.E. 553; State v. Washington, 80 S.C.......