State v. Turner

• Decision Date: 21 June 1888
• Citation: 6 S.E. 891,29 S.C. 34
• Parties: STATE v. TURNER.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

6 S.E. 891

29 S.C. 34

STATE v. TURNER.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

June 21, 1888

Appeal from general sessions circuit court of Spartanburg county NORTON, Judge.

Bomar & Simpson, C. P. Sanders, and J. S. Cothran, for appellant.

Solicitor Duncan and W. S. Thomason, for the State.

SIMPSON C.J.

The appellant was convicted of manslaughter at the October term of the court of general sessions, 1887, for Spartanburg county, and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. He appeals to this court, alleging error to the charge of the trial judge in several particulars, and to the exclusion of certain testimony, as appears in the exceptions found in the case. After full consideration, our conclusion is that the case must go back, and a new trial had. This is based mainly upon two of the exceptions, or rather upon two of the alleged errors, raised and presented in the exceptions of appellant, to-wit: First, the exclusion of certain witnesses offered to testify as to the general character of the deceased for violence; and second, to that portion of his honor's charge in which he stated to the jury as follows: "I charge you that in this particular case, that if you believe the defendant's statement that the deceased had told him 'God damn you, I will kill you,' and accompanied those words by moving towards the door with an apparent purpose of putting the threat into execution immediately that then a verdict of manslaughter might be proper in the case; or, if the circumstances did not prove to your satisfaction that there was malice, either express or implied." The rule as to the character of the deceased in cases of homicide seems to be as follows: In general no evidence will be admitted when confined to bad character as contradistinguished from character for violence, ferocity, vindictiveness, etc., on the ground that such testimony would be irrelevant. Nor would testimony as to violence and brutality, when offered simply as an excuse or palliation for the homicide, be competent, for the reason that no one has the right to take the law into his own hands, and to rid the community, pro bono publico, of a dangerous member, simply on the ground that he is dangerous. "But where the defendant sets up self-defense, and proceeds to present a case of apparent danger honestly believed in by himself as a defense, then evidence of the deceased's ferocity, strength, brutality, and vindictiveness is relevant to show the bona fides of the defendant's belief." Whart. Hom. (2d Ed.) §§ 605, 607. The great matter in every case of homicide is the motive which prompted the fatal act; and to ascertain this, in justice to the accused, all of the surrounding circumstances and facts calculated to influence motive and to prompt action, and relevant to the important issues involved, should be admitted. In our state the prominent case in which the question here was involved is the case of State v. Smith, 12 Rich. Law, 430. The court said in that case: "It seems hardly necessary to observe that evidence of the character and habits of the party slain is proper only so far as they can be supposed to have affected the intention of the slayer in the fatal act; and therefore his general bad character is inadmissible. The evidence should be confined to a character and habits of violence, treachery, etc., such as might beget reasonable apprehensions of grievous bodily harm, and reduce the other party to the apparent necessity to slay in self-preservation. *** But whether the general character or conduct or particular acts of the description mentioned be offered, it appears to be essential to their reception that it should somehow reasonably appear that the prisoner knew, or may be supposed to know, such character or conduct; for if he was...