State v. Pittman

• Decision Date: 25 January 1926
• Docket Number: 11,902.
• Parties: STATE v. PITTMAN et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

134 S.E. 514

137 S.C. 75

STATE v. PITTMAN et al.

No. 11,902.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

January 25, 1926

On Petition for Rehearing, September 23, 1926.

Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Greenville County; T J. Mauldin, Judge.

Alex Pittman and another were convicted of murder, and they appeal. Affirmed.

J. R Martin and Bowen & Bryson, all of Greenville, for appellants.

J. G Leatherwood, Sol., Dean, Cothran & Wyche, and J. D. Lanford, all of Greenville, for the State.

MARION A. A. J.

The defendants, Alex Pittman and his son, Holland Pittman, were jointly indicted and tried for and convicted of the murder of J. H. Howard before Hon. T. J. Mauldin, circuit judge, and a jury. The execution of the sentence of death was stayed by notice of intention to appeal to this court. Subsequently, a motion for a new trial on after-discovered evidence was made in the circuit court before Hon. H. F. Rice, and the motion refused. This appeal is from the judgment on sentence by Judge T. J. Mauldin and from the order, refusing a new trial on after-discovered evidence, by Judge H. F. Rice.

The gravity of the issues involved and the character of certain of the questions raised by the exceptions warrant a more or less extended reference to the evidential facts as disclosed by the record. The scene of the homicide is the foot of Hog Back Mountain in Glassy Mountain township, county of Greenville, some 30 miles northwest of the city of Greenville. That location has both a geographical and historical aspect of which this court may properly take judicial cognizance. It is a picturesque region of wooded mountain ridges and valleys, of cliffs and gorges, a typical section of the beautiful Blue Ridge range of the Appalachian Mountains. In the fastnesses of these mountains, south of Mason and Dixon's line, have lived for more than a century a sturdy, virile white people of probably as pure Anglo-Saxon stock as America can boast. Remote and isolated by the inaccessibility of their mountain homes, for a century or more they lived in a world apart, practically untouched and uninfluenced by the currents and tides of social and economic progress which flowed and rose and ebbed in the great world beyond their mountain barriers. The gift of the mountains to their children has always been a love of liberty. That love of liberty, fostered by the isolation of their mountain life, is doubtless responsible, in a measure, for the antipathy of these people to the law of legislative halls and of courts. In no more striking way, perhaps, has this characteristic been evinced and illustrated than by the tenacity with which they have clung to the conviction that their right to convert the corn, grown in their valleys and coves, into whisky, is a God-given and inalienable right.

Prior to the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, these people, or many of them, persisted in asserting that right as against the revenue officers of the federal government, and since the enactment of the National Prohibition Law (U. S. Comp. St. § 10138 1/4 et seq.), the phenomenal increase in market value of "moonshine" has doubtless furnished little incentive to depart from the "tradition of the elders." Certain characteristics, for which that faith and practice are perhaps largely responsible, are manifested by a marked tendency to secretiveness and suspicion in all social and business contacts with outsiders, and by a strong inclination to settle scores among themselves in accordance with the spirit of the vendetta-a spirit, however, which in fairness, it may be said, competent observers have ascribed, in part at least, to the influence of ancestral traditions reaching back to the days of chivalry, the Reformation, and the clan. The record in the case before us is reminiscent of the pages of stories by Miss Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock), John Fox, Jr., and other modern writers, who have written with compelling interest and charm of the lives of these Southern mountaineers. While in a court of law murder is murder, and the halo of mountain romance fades into the dull and somber hues of sordid tragedy, the foregoing general observations as to the setting of this crime and as to the racial characteristics of the people who figured almost exclusively as dramatis personae in the trial below are not without pertinent bearing in appraising the contentions of the parties, with respect to the relevancy and weight of testimony.

About noon on the 31st of January, 1924, Reuben Gosnell, a prohibition agent of the federal government, and J. H. Howard, a state constable, approached an illicit distillery in the locality above referred to. When within a short distance of the distillery, Gosnell saw the upper part of a man, who appeared to be talking to some one. Gosnell concealed himself on one side, and Howard approached the distillery from another angle. When Howard was within about 30 yards of the distillery, Gosnell saw Howard "make a break to run" and ran "right into the distillery." Gosnell, who could not see into the distillery, heard the voice of a man or of men cursing, and heard Howard call his (Gosnell's) name. At or about the same time Gosnell heard several shots fired in the distillery. He testified he then saw two men run from the distillery, one going toward the west and the other toward the east. He gave chase to the man on his side running toward the east and captured the defendant, Holland Pittman, who at the time of his capture drew or tried to draw a loaded 45-caliber pistol which had not been fired. Gosnell then went back to the distillery with Holland Pittman, and found J. H. Howard dead, his pistol lying within 2 feet of him, with the hammer on an empty chamber (not empty cartridge). He had been shot five times, one bullet entering from the front and the others from the back.

Gosnell, with his prisoner, then went back more than a quarter of a mile to where he and the deceased on their way to the distillery had left Austin, another prohibition agent, and Clarence Howard, a son of the deceased, who had in charge two Plumley boys, who had been arrested earlier that morning on a charge of distilling. The point at which Austin and the others had been left was at a crib near a camp or lookout. This camp was under a big cliff, well concealed, at a point from which one could "see up and down the valley." Bedclothing, cooking utensils, rations, and men's clothing, including two hats, had been found at this camp by Gosnell and Howard on their way to the distillery where Howard was killed. At that time Howard identified the hats, and, in consequence of that identification, Gosnell testified they were looking for Alex Pittman and his younger son, Fred Pittman, at the still. After meeting the Austin party at the crib (after the homicide) and telling them what had happened, Gosnell arranged for Clarence Howard to take the Plumley boys on to Greenville, and with Austin, his fellow officer, and the defendant, Holland Pittman, went back to the still, where the deceased Howard lay dead. On the way back, within 200 yards of the still, they were fired on from ambush. Gosnell then told the prisoner, Hol Pittman, that it "looked like" they were "all going to be killed," and that if he didn't tell him who killed Howard he would kill him (Pittman). Pittman then made a statement, which was reiterated several hours after Gosnell's threat to kill, to the effect that one Henry Lindsay had shot and killed Howard. On the road to town that night while in the custody of the officers, Holland Pittman made another statement to a third party to the effect that he expected to have "to go to the electric chair."

At an inquest held the day after the homicide, Gosnell testified substantially to the foregoing facts. He further testified to the effect that he saw from a distance too great for recognition the other man who ran away from the distillery and that the man did not look like Hol Pittman's younger brother, Fred, who was present at the inquest. He then answered questions as follows:

"Q. Have you any idea of your own? A. I couldn't say. ***

Q. It wasn't Alex? A. He was a big man.

Q. You would not say it was not Alex? A. No, sir.

You know Alex pretty well, don't you? A. I have known Alex for years. ***

Q. As to Alex Pittman here, you won't swear it was not him? Would you swear it was? A. I would not be willing to swear; no, sir."

On the Sunday following the killing on Thursday, Gosnell again went to the distillery and was shown by Wade Plumley certain tracks going from the distillery in the direction "the other man" ran on the day of the homicide. At an inquest held on Monday of the following week, both Gosnell and Plumley testified that, in their opinion, the tracks were the tracks of Alex Pittman.

On the trial below, the defendant, Holland Pittman, did not take the stand. His position there, and his contention here, is that the only reasonable inference from the state's evidence establishing his presence at the distillery and his precipitate flight therefrom with a pistol on his person which had not been fired, is that he did not shoot the deceased, and that the statements made by him while under arrest are wholly ineffective to preclude that inference because made under duress. Alex Pittman, the father, took the stand and set up the affirmative defense of alibi. He contends that he was on good terms with his neighbor, the deceased Howard; that, like Constable Howard, he had quit the illicit manufacture of liquor, and had not engaged therein for several years; that on the day of the homicide he was at his home shucking corn in his crib from early morning until 4 o'clock in the afternoon; that his home is more than 6 miles from the place of...