State v. Turnage
Decision Date | 05 July 1917 |
Docket Number | 9730. |
Citation | 93 S.E. 182,107 S.C. 478 |
Parties | STATE v. TURNAGE. |
Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Sumter County; Geo. E Prince, Judge.
Albert Turnage was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Reversed and new trial ordered.
Geo. D Shore, Jr., and Marion W. Seabrook, both of Sumter, for appellant.
P. H Stoll, Sol., of Kingstree, for the State.
The appellant was convicted of the murder of Eugene Rainey, a negro hack driver. The dead body of Rainey was found in the woods near the city of Sumter, and showed evidence of death from a blow on the head. The automobile, which had been in charge of the deceased, was found not far from Bennettsville. The automobile was driven from Sumter to Bennettsville, the morning after the killing, by the appellant. The appellant admits that he drove the car from Sumter to Bennettsville, but stated that one Peter Andrews had offered to take him to Bennettsville in his car, but had come to him a little later and asked appellant to drive the car, and he (Andrews) would go on the train; that he was offered work in or near Bennettsville, and had gone there, where some members of his family lived, to get the work.
"
There are five allegations of error in this charge. One good reason for sustaining this exception is enough:
"If it commends itself to you as true, why then that does away with the inference to be drawn against him by reason of the flight, or by reason of the fact that he left the community."
" Leaving a community" and "flight" are not synonymous terms. Bouvier, Law Dictionary:
The appellant admitted that he left Sumter, the place of the crime, the morning after the crime. He denied that he was evading arrest. Every one who leaves a community, after a crime has been committed therein, is not to be held to trial and required to prove a reasonable and true reason for going, on pain of conviction for the crime. Flight or evasion of arrest is a circumstance to go to the jury, and that is far enough to go. See Alberty v. U. S., 162 U.S. 499, 16 S.Ct. 864, 40 L.Ed. 1051.
"Going back a little bit, didn't your brother get in a shooting scrape several years ago?"
The appellant wanted to show the hostile attitude of the witness. The question did not suggest that result, and the answer was properly excluded. This exception is overruled.
These two exceptions are the only ones argued, and the others are deemed abandoned.
The judgment is reversed and a new trial ordered.
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State v. Crawford
...Flight or evasion of arrest is a circumstance to go to the jury. See Beckham, 334 S.C. at 315, 513 S.E.2d at 612; State v. Turnage, 107 S.C. 478, 93 S.E. 182 (1917); see also State v. Byers, 277 S.C. 176, 284 S.E.2d 360 (1981) (recognizing that evidence of flight is proper and that it is of......