Town Of Blacksburg v. Beam
| Decision Date | 28 March 1916 |
| Docket Number | (No. 9354.) |
| Citation | 88 S.E. 441 |
| Parties | TOWN OF BLACKSBURG. v. BEAM. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Cherokee County; Charles Carroll Slmms, Special Judge.
Audie Beam was acquitted of the charge of transporting alcoholic liquors, and the Town of Blacksburg appeals. Affirmed.
B. F. Ramseur, of Blacksburg, and Butler & Hall, of Gaffney, for appellant.
N. W. Hardin, of Blacksburg, for respondent.
The defendant was tried by the mayor of Blacksburg for transporting alcoholic liquors, was found guilty, and was sentenced to pay a fine of $100, or to serve 30 days at hard labor on the public works. The circuit court in a formal order reversed the judgment and dismissed the case. The municipal corporation has appealed by seven exceptions, the first six of which refer back to the exceptions which the defendant had made to the mayor's judgment, and the seventh of which is general in character. The record is short, and we shall consider the issues which were argued, and which fairly arise on the record, and without much regard to formality.
The defendant is a young, white farmer, and lives near Kings Creek, a few miles out from Blacksburg. He had been to Union Court House, where he bought the whisky from a dispensary; he put the liquor in his trunk, and checked the trunk to Blacksburg, where he disembarked from the railroad cars, bought a ticket to Kings Creek (towards York), and had his trunk rechecked to that place. Pending his passage from one line of railroad to another, the chief of police at Blacksburg, without any process, searched the defendant's person, got therefrom his trunk key, opened the trunk, and seized the whisky, arrested and incarcerated defendant, and only the next morning thereafter procured to be issued a warrant of arrest. So that it so happened one town in the same judicial circuit sold the whisky to the defendant for a profit, and another town took it from him by force, and flung him in jail for having it in his possession. We have no doubt but that a conviction under the recited circumstances is unlawful. Some things are to be more deplored than the unlawful transportation of whisky; one is the loss of liberty. Common as the event may be, it is a serious thing to arrest a citizen, and it is a more serious thing to search his person; and he who accomplishes it, must do so in conformity to the laws of the land. There are two reasons for this; one to avoid bloodshed, and...
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State v. Tonn
......652, 34 S.Ct. 341. And see. Newberry v. Carpenter , 107 Mich. 567, 65 N.W. 530;. Town of Blacksburg v. Beam , 104 S.C. 146 (88 S.E. 441); Silverthorne v. United States , 251 U.S. ......
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...... that the correct rule in such cases was as set out in the above cases until the case of Blacksburg v. Beam, 104 S. C. 146, 88 S. E. 441, L. R. A. 1916E, 714, was decided by our court. ... court which reversed the judgment of the mayor, convicting the accused of a violation of the town ordinance prohibiting the unlawful transportation of alcoholic liquors, the court, the lamented ......