State v. Reggen

• Decision Date: 28 March 1949
• Docket Number: 16201.
• Citation: 52 S.E.2d 708,214 S.C. 370
• Parties: STATE v. REGGEN.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

52 S.E.2d 708

214 S.C. 370

STATE v. REGGEN.

No. 16201.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

March 28, 1949

Hydrick & Hydrick, of Orangeburg, for appellant.

Julian S. Wolfe, Sol., L. A. Hutson, both Of Orangeburg, for respondent.

STUKES, Justice.

Appellant a young colored woman, was convicted on May 31, 1948 in the Orangeburg County Court of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature and sentenced to serve one year upon the public works of the county.

The victim of the assault, who received a serious stab wound, was the principal witness for the prosecution. On cross-examination she admitted several conviction for disorderly conduct and vagrancy during the years 1942 to 1947, inclusive. There was no objection by the Solicitor to the further inquiry of the witness whether she was also convicted of larceny in 1942, which she admitted. Later in the continued cross-examination appellant's counsel asked whether during the last six years the witness had been convicted of larceny or disorderly conduct eleven times which the witness admitted might be true and she did not deny it. At this point the trial judge interjected: 'Better strike out about the larceny charge.'

The agreed portion of the Transcript of Record for appeal contains the following: 'During the argument before the jury on the part of counsel for defendant, counsel stated substantially: That the prosecuting witness, during the last six years, had been convicted of disorderly conduct fighting, and for the crime of larceny. The Court interrupted counsel and stated that he had stricken out the testimony with reference to the conviction of larceny and specifically instructed the jury to disregard any reference to the conviction of the crime of larceny.'

Besides a controversy with reference to the settlement of the record which will be later discussed, the appeal is concerned only with alleged error by the Trial Judge in striking out the cross-examination relating to the prior conviction of the prosecuting witness of the crime of larceny and in the interruption of the argument of appellant's counsel to the jury and the instruction of the latter that they should disregard any reference to the conviction of the witness of the crime of larceny.

Guilt of larceny goes to the credibility of a witness and may be properly proved in order to discredit the witness. Exclusion here was error. Sec. 1012-1, Code of 1942. State v. Van Williams, 212 S.C. 110, 46 S.E.2d 665, and cases there cited. The establishment of the guilt of the appellant of the crime charged depended in large part upon the truth of the testimony of this witness. Thus the error can hardly be fairly held to have been immaterial and harmless. It was emphasized by the voluntary and unwarranted interruption by the Court of counsel's argument to the jury and repetition then of the erroneous ruling which had been previously made during the cross-examination of the witness.

Upon appeal the appellant proposed that the record should contain only the statement, to the content of which no objection was made by the Solicitor, the testimony of the prosecuting witness and a narrative of the interruption by the court of counsel's argument to the juy, which it was contended constituted a sufficient record for our consideration of the single question presented by the exceptions. The...