State v. Singleton
| Decision Date | 28 November 1932 |
| Docket Number | 13525. |
| Parties | STATE v. SINGLETON. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Hampton County; P. H Stoll, Judge.
John Singleton was convicted for housebreaking and larceny, and he appeals.
Order requiring entire record to be printed reversed, and judgment affirmed in other respects.
George Warren, of Hampton, for appellant.
Randolph Murdaugh, Sol., of Hampton, for the State.
W. C COTHRAN, A. A. J.
Charged with housebreaking and larceny, the appellant, John Singleton, along with John Henry Bing and Louis Bing, was brought before the court of sessions for Hampton county at the February, 1931, term of that court. John Henry Bing entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced to imprisonment the trial of John Singleton resulted in a mistrial; and the defendant Louis Bing, owing to his tender years, escaped through the meshes of the legal net, a nol. pros. being entered as to him.
At the September, 1931, term, John Singleton was again brought to trial and was convicted. John Henry Bing was then serving his sentence. From the conviction of John Singleton this appeal is taken, and three principal questions are raised for determination. They are alleged error as to the admissibility of evidence, alleged error in refusing to grant a new trial, and alleged error as to the requirement that the entire record of the court below be printed for purposes of this appeal. The last question will be first considered.
Under the second paragraph of rule 4 of this court it is provided "Only the necessary and pertinent testimony to which one or more exceptions relate shall be printed." It further provides that if more than the necessary testimony is printed, the costs of printing the unnecessary portion shall be taxed against the offending party.
The exceptions refer only to the testimony of the witness Dowling, and his testimony comprises only eleven pages of the fifty-four page transcript. Ten pages are taken up with the title, statement of fact, the exceptions, etc. It would thus appear that the entire matter relative to this appeal could, and should, have been covered in twenty-one pages and that thirty-three pages were entirely unnecessary. The appellant proposed the lesser amount of printing, but neither the solicitor nor the circuit judge would adopt his view. The "offending party" was the state, through the solicitor, and the appellant should not be required to pay for this extra amount of printing.
John C Dowling, a magistrate, was called upon to make an investigation soon after the theft was discovered. He went to the home of John Henry Bing and located a goodly quantity of the stolen goods. Upon receipt of certain information, he went to the home of the appellant and had him brought to Bing's home. The solicitor, in his examination of Dowling, cautioned the witness not to repeat anything said by Bing unless said in the presence of Singleton, whereupon the witness said: ' After considerable digging in the garden by several parties, some one unearthed a box of the stolen property. The solicitor asked the witness if Bing then said anything to Singleton, and the witness replied: "He said, 'John, you put it there."' Were questions and answers of an unobjectionable nature were then given, and the solicitor finally said: "What did he (Bing) say?" The attorney for the appellant then, for the first time, objected. His ground of objection was that at that time, the time of the trial, Bing had been sentenced for larceny and was serving his sentence; that Bing could not testify even if in court, and that as Bing could not himself testify, the witness could not say what Bing had said. The court then called on the solicitor for his views, and argument was had by both attorneys. It does not appear that the court made a ruling on the objection in so many words, but it does appear that the solicitor proceeded along the same lines of questioning, thereby showing that the objection to the testimony had been overruled upon the ground presented. The witness was then more fully examined as to everything Bing had said in the presence of Singleton without further objection by the attorney for the appellant. When the witness had practically completed his narrative of everything Bing had said, including charges of guilt against Singleton, it was called to the attention of the court, not, however, by way of objection to the testimony, that the solicitor had not asked the witness anything about what Singleton had to say. To the attorney for the appellant the court replied: "You can do that." Thereupon, under examination by the attorney for the appellant, the witness said that the appellant denied the "whole thing and protested his innocence." After several more questions were asked and after argument of counsel was had, the court ruled as follows: "If he had not said anything, I would have ruled it competent, but where he denied it, I do not think it is competent." The record does not show any formal objection to the testimony on this latter ground, but that the court excluded the testimony of its own motion under...
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State v. Brown
...the jury instructed to disregard it. State v. James, 34 S.C. 49, 12 S.E. 657; State v. Green, 121 S.C. 230, 114 S.E. 317; State v. Singleton, 167 S.C. 543, 166 S.E. 725. The Court further instructed the jury that the evidence from the testimony relating to appellant's alleged confessions wa......
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State v. Lynn
...out. State v. Craig, 267 S.C. 262, 227 S.E.2d 306 (1976); State v. Britt, 235 S.C. 395, 111 S.E.2d 669 (1959); State v. Singleton, 167 S.C. 543, 166 S.E. 725 (1932). Under the facts of this case, we conclude that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion by failing to order a mistrial af......