State v. Weldon

• Decision Date: 17 July 1911
• Citation: 71 S.E. 828,89 S.C. 308
• Parties: STATE v. WELDON et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

71 S.E. 828

89 S.C. 308

STATE v. WELDON et al.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

July 17, 1911

Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Florence County; Geo W. Brown, Special Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Alex Weldon and another were convicted of murder, and they appeal. Dismissed without prejudice.

See also, 88 S.C. 555, 71 S.E. 33.

W. F Clayton and Willcox & Willcox, for appellants. Walter H Wells, Sol., for the State.

WOODS J.

Elihu Moye was brutally murdered in his own home near Ebenezer, in Florence county, on the night of the 28th of October, 1910. Very soon thereafter, the defendants, Alexander Weldon and William Burroughs, were tried for the crime at a special term of the court of general sessions held for the purpose of the trial. They have appealed from the judgment of conviction and sentence of death.

The case has given this court the utmost concern, not only because the lives of the defendants are involved, but because the record discloses that the trial took place at a time of great public excitement, because the material evidence against the defendants came almost entirely from one Clarence Ham, who claimed to be an accomplice, and who was impeached as a witness by testimony that he had confessed that his accusation against the defendants was false, and because the allegation is made that the excited crowd so took possession of the courthouse and made such threats of violence that the defendants were not given a fair trial.

There is no merit in the exceptions to the charge. Instructions to the jury on the subject of self-defense and manslaughter had no application to the case. The evidence admitted of no other inference than that Elihu Moye had been assassinated in his own house, and the sole issue before the jury was whether the defendants had participated in the murder. State v. Du Rant, 87 S.C. 532, 70 S.E. 306.

For the same reason, the defendants cannot complain of a failure to elaborate the meaning of the word "malice," for there could be no doubt of the malice of the malefactor who committed the homicide.

The instruction as to the testimony of an accomplice was in accord with the law, as stated in State v. Sowell, 85 S.C. 278, 67 S.E. 316.

The following language used by the court evidently could not have been understood by the jury to mean that they were not to consider the turpitude of an accomplice in considering the weight to be given his testimony. "The law in this state for a long number of years was declared by our Supreme Court to be that it was unsafe to convict upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. But our Supreme Court has recently changed that doctrine, and it is not the law now. The law in regard to the testimony of an accomplice is just like it is as to the testimony of any other witness in a case. That is to say, that you are the sole judges of the weight you should give to such testimony."

The exceptions alleging unfairness in the conduct of the trial are as follows: "His honor erred in allowing a crowd, some of whom were bent upon killing the prisoners, to take possession of the courthouse, and hold the same during the trial, occupying every available space, including the bar reserved for the lawyers, to such an extent that the jurors were entirely cut off from the view of counsel, and counsel had to request his honor on several occasions to cause the sheriff to clear away the crowd that counsel might see the witness he was examining, thus, in effect, overawing the jury, and, as such, the accused did not have that fair trial awarded them under the Constitution and laws of the state. That defendants have not had a fair and impartial trial, and have been convicted upon the testimony of Ham, an accomplice, alone, whose testimony is from the many contradictory statements unworthy of belief. That defendants' counsel, hearing the reports upon the streets of lynching as he went to the courthouse at the solicitation of the special judge, and seeing the unusual crowd in the courthouse, did not dare to ask for the three days allowed by law for fear of the murder of his clients. That from this fear he was unable to get up any testimony in behalf of his clients, and went into the trial without knowledge of his defense. That since the trial defendants' counsel has obtained the affidavit of Sallie Weldon, the wife of Alex Weldon, which is incorporated in the case, tending to show an alibi for both of the defendants. That defendants' counsel knew nothing of this evidence, nor could have known of the same unless he had insisted upon this three days, in which event counsel fully believes that he would have endangered the lives of his clients if he had demanded his three days, and by reason thereof defendants have not had a fair trial."

After argument of the appeal, this court made the following order with respect to these exceptions: "As a basis for exceptions charging that...