State v. Steadman

• Decision Date: 22 November 1948
• Docket Number: 16149.
• Parties: STATE v. STEADMAN.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

51 S.E.2d 91

214 S.C. 1

STATE v. STEADMAN.

No. 16149.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

November 22, 1948

Coble Funderburk, of Monroe, N. C., and C. T Graydon, of Columbia, for appellant.

T. P. Taylor, Sol., of Columbia, for respondent.

BAKER Chief Justice.

The appellant, Ida E. Steadman, was indicted in the Court of General Sessions for Richland County under two sections of the Code--Sections 1112 and 1113, reading respectively as follows:

'Any person who shall administer to any woman with child, or prescribe for any such woman, or suggest to or advise or procure her to take, any medicine, substance, drug or thing whatever, or who shall use or employ, or advise the use or employment of, any instrument or other means of force whatever, with intent thereby to cause or procure the miscarriage or abortion or premature labor of any such woman unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve her life, or the life of such child, shall, in case the death of such child or of such woman results in whole or in part therefrom, be deemed guilty of a felony, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not more than twenty years nor less than five years. But no conviction shall be had under the provisions of this section upon the uncorroborated evidence of such woman.'

'Any person who shall administer to any woman with child, or prescribe or procure or provide for any such woman, or advise or procure any such woman to take any medicine, drug substance or thing whatever, or shall use or employ or advise the use or employment of, any instrument or other means or force whatever, with intent thereby to cause or produce the miscarriage or abortion or premature labor of any such woman shall, upon convicted thereof, be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not more than five years, or by fine not more than five thousand dollars, or by such fine and imprisonment both, at the discretion of the court, but no conviction shall be had under the provisions of this section upon the uncorroborated evidence of such a woman.'

While for the purpose of this opinion, it is unnecessary, yet it is proper to mention that prior to pleading to the indictment, the appellant, through counsel, moved to quash the indictment on the ground that it contained two separate and distinct statutory crimes, and that, under the law, they couldn't be joined in the same indictment; and failing in this motion, it was further moved that the State be required to elect upon which count (section of the Code) it would proceed. (The first count was alleged under Section 1112, and the second count under Section 1113, both following closely the wording of the sections.)

These motions were refused, and exceptions thereto duly taken. There are other exceptions relating to the admission upon the trial of the case, of certain testimony of damaging effect to the appellant, and to 'permitting the Solicitor to ask highly leading and prejudicial questions, and in allowing him to make highly prejudicial remarks, and in letting in certain responses from the State's witnesses which were highly prejudicial.' No further reference will be made to these exceptions by way of discussion.

Following the refusal of the trial Judge to either quash the indictment or require the State to elect under which section of the Code it would proceed, a trial was entered upon, after a plea of 'Not Guilty' by the appellant.

At the conclusion of the testimony in behalf of the State, the appellant unsuccessfully moved for a direction of verdict of 'Not Guilty' generally, and again after all testimony was in, the appellant unsuccessfully moved for a direction of verdict of 'Not Guilty' under Section 1112 of the Code in that there was no evidence of a child being killed or of there being such a child that could have been killed, and that, therefore, the appellant could not be guilty under said Section 1112, and that such count in the indictment should be eliminated from the consideration of the jury.

The jury found the appellant guilty on the first count, that is to say, guilty under Section 1112, and the trial Judge imposed a sentence of seven years.

The exceptions to which we direct our attention, and the only ones necessary for the Court to consider in this appeal, raise the issue if there was sufficient proof of the corpus delicti to allow the Judge to submit the case to the jury under Section 1112 of the Code. Stated in another way, did the trial Judge err when he refused to grant the appellant's motion for a direction of verdict of not guilty as to the first count in the indictment?

For the purpose of deciding this question, let it be conceded (without so holding) that there is no merit in any of the other exceptions, and that there was ample testimony requiring the submission of this case to the jury under Section 1113, even with the elimination of the recorded telephone conversation.

Section 1112 makes a statutory offense out of what theretofore had been a crime under the common law, though not termed 'abortion'; and Section 1113 makes a statutory offense out of what prior to the enactment of the statute was not cognizable by the common law, when committed with the assent of the pregnant woman. At common law, an abortion produced with the woman's consent, was not a crime unless the woman was 'quick with child,' that is, when the embryo had advanced to that degree of maturity where the child had a separate and independent existence, and the woman has herself felt the child alive and quick within her. Commonwealth v. Parker, 9 Metc. 263, 50 Mass. 263, 43 Am.Dec. 396; Mitchell v. Commonwealth, 78 Ky. 204, 39 Am.Rep. 227; State v. Forte, 222 N.C. 537, 23 S.E.2d 842.

'Life begins, in contemplation of law, as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb.' 1 Bl.Com. 129. As stated in State v. Cooper, 22 N.J.L. 52, 51 Am.Dec. 248: 'It is not material whether, speaking with physiological accuracy, life may be said to commence at the moment of quickening, or at the moment of conception, or at some intervening period. In contemplation of law, life commences at the moment of...