State v. Redmon

• Decision Date: 01 September 1922
• Docket Number: 11002.
• Citation: State v. Redmon, 121 S.C. 139, 113 S.E. 467 (S.C. 1922)
• Parties: STATE v. REDMON.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

113 S.E. 467

121 S.C. 139

STATE v. REDMON.

No. 11002.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

September 1, 1922

Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Marion County; George E. Prince, Judge.

James Redmon was convicted of attempting to obtain goods under false pretenses, and he appeals. Reversed.

Cothran and Marion, JJ., dissenting.

Henry Buck, of Marion, for appellant.

L. M Gasque, Sol., of Marion, for the State.

FRASER J.

The charge in this case is an attempt to obtain goods under false pretenses. The statute makes obtaining goods under false pretenses, irrespective of the amount involved, a misdemeanor. It is elementary law that an attempt to commit a misdemeanor is not an indictable offense.

The judgment is reversed.

GARY C.J., and WATTS, J., concur.

COTHRAN J. (dissenting).

The defendant was convicted and sentenced under an indictment charging him with attempting to commit the statutory offense of obtaining money under false pretenses the amount involved being $30. The sole ground of his appeal is that, as section 220 of the Criminal Code has made the offense, regardless of the amount or value of the property obtained, a misdemeanor, an attempt to commit a misdemeanor is not a crime.

In the first place, I think that the characterization of the offense, declared in section 220 as a misdemeanor, was intended rather as the declaration of a legal infraction than as a classification, in contradistinction to a felony, particularly in reference to an offense essentially malum in se, and possibly involving many times the standard of valuation in grand larceny. But, construing the statute strictly as classifying the offense as a misdemeanor in the technical sense of the word, I do not think it follows by any means as "elementary law" that an indictment will not lie for an attempt to commit a misdemeanor. In 16 C.J. 111, it is said:

"As a general rule an attempt to commit a crime is a misdemeanor, whether the crime is a felony or a misdemeanor, and whether it is an offense at common law or under a statute"--citing cases from the federal inferior courts, Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, England, and Ontario. "But it has been held that an attempt to commit a misdemeanor, which is purely statutory, and not malum in se, is not indictable as a separate offense, unless

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