State v. Martin

• Decision Date: 11 July 1896
• Parties: STATE v. MARTIN.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

25 S.E. 113

47 S.C. 67

STATE v. MARTIN.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

July 11, 1896

Appeal from general sessions circuit court of Hampton county Buchanan, Judge.

John Martin was convicted of murder, and appeals. Affirmed.

W. S Tillinghast, for appellant.

Solicitor Bellinger, for the State.

JONES J.

The appellant was indicted for the murder of one Peter Polite the jury found him guilty, with a recommendation to mercy; and he was, according to statute, sentenced to imprisonment for life. The proof of the corpus delicti was by circumstantial or presumptive evidence alone. No evidence was offered in behalf of the defendant. The testimony for the state tended to show that on Sunday night before Christmas in 1894, Peter Polite, having in his pocket $40 or $45, his savings from his labor that year, left the premises of John C. Davis, a few miles across the Savannah, in Georgia, where he had been engaged at work, and that same night arrived in Hampton county. His movements in Hampton county, in the neighborhood of Shirleys, were traced until about 11 o'clock on Tuesday, Christmas day, when he was last seen alive with the defendant, John Martin, going towards the house where defendant lived, on Mr. McKensie's place. He was described by witnesses as a small negro man, wearing a grey overcoat and dark striped pants. On the morning of the 26th of December, 1894, a small outhouse, containing some hay and fodder, on the premises of Mr. Solomans, about one-half mile from where the defendant lived, was destroyed by fire, and later in the day, in the debris of the burned house, was discovered the charred body of a human being, with both arms missing, the lower part of both legs gone, face burned beyond recognition, and with the top of the skull crushed in, according to one witness,--cut off smooth, as with a heavy sharp instrument, and such a wound as to produce immediate death, as testified by the physician who made the post mortem examination. The action of the fire and heat being less upon the back than upon the other parts of the body, the physician, from an examination of some cuticle not destroyed there, testified that the human body was a negro, and it was apparent he was a man, and of small size. Among the ashes where the body was found were discovered some buttons; also, buckles, such as are used on pants and vests, a piece of dark striped cloth, a collar button, pieces of a small glass vial or bottle, a quarter dollar, some pieces of slate, and a slate pencil. A witness testified that the piece of cloth was like the cloth of which Peter Polite's pants were made, and which he wore at the time of his disappearance. A witness testified that the collar button found was of the same pattern, adjusting with a spring, as one worn by Peter Polite on the Sunday previous. Two witnesses testified that Polite carried a slate pencil the size of the one found, one of the witnesses identifying the pencil found with the pencil carried by Polite by an indentation on the side of the pencil by a piece being slit or scaled off; one having seen Polite with such a pencil on Sunday, and the other on Monday night, previous to his disappearance. This was the evidence relied on to establish the identity of the body found with the body of Peter Polite, alleged to have been killed. Defendant's counsel objected to the evidence as to the piece of cloth and the slate pencil, was overruled, and now excepts thereto, as follows: "For error (1) in allowing witness to testify as to charred cloth without first showing that it came from Peter Polite's body; and (2) in admitting, against objection, a piece of pencil, which appeared to be like other pencils, without proof that it came from the body of Peter Polite."

These exceptions seem to raise the question as to the admissibility of circumstantial evidence to prove the fact of the death of Peter Polite, and the identity of the body found with that of Peter Polite, alleged to have been killed by the defendant. Otherwise, the exceptions relate merely to the weight and sufficiency of the evidence, which we have very often declared it is not in our power to review in a case at law. Notwithstanding the old rule that, to warrant a conviction of murder or manslaughter, there must be direct evidence of the fact of killing or of the finding and identification of the dead body, as laid down by Sir Mathew Hale in 2 Hale, P. C. 290, by Lord Stowell in Evans v. Evans, 1 Hagg. Consist. 105, and by Lord Abinger in Reg. v. Hopkins, 8 Car. & P. 591, yet there were familiar exceptions in cases where the victim's body was thrown overboard at sea, or entirely destroyed, or so destroyed as to be beyond recognition. In Rex v. Clewes, 4 Car. & P. 221, the body of a man after many years was identified by some peculiarity of the teeth; and in the celebrated and familiar Webster Case, 5 Cush. 295, Parkman's remains were identified by some mineral teeth, found in defendant's laboratory and elsewhere, which a dentist testified were part of a set made by him for the deceased. See, also, People v. Wilson, 3 Parker, 199, and Hindmarsh's Case, 2 Leach, Crown Cas. 571. Mr. Greenleaf, in his work on Evidence (section 30), says: "Even in cases of homicide, though ordinarily there ought to be the testimony of persons who have seen and identified the body, yet this is not indispensably necessary in cases where the proof of the death is so strong and intense as to produce the full assurance of moral certainty. *** It is obvious that on this point no precise rule can be laid down, except that the evidence ought to be strong and cogent, and that innocence should be presumed until the case is proved against the prisoner in all its material circumstances beyond any reasonable doubt." In Clark's Criminal Law we find this statement: "The rule is that there can be no conviction of a felonious homicide on circumstantial...