7 S.C. 283 | S.C. | 1876
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
The appellant and Emanuel Fields were indicted for a conspiracy to cheat and defraud one William Smith. They had both plead “not guilty,” and appeared. The State severed. Jackson was put on his trial. Fields was the principal witness for the prosecution. After the jury retired a nol. pros, was entered as to him, and a verdict of “guilty” rendered against Jackson. Special grounds are submitted in arrest of judgment, and, principally among them, that the prosecution of one of the two parties against whom the conspiracy was charged having terminated before judgment against the other, it operates per se as an acquittal of the defendant on trial. This proposition cannot be maintained as a general one to the extent thus claimed for it. A nol. pros, does not necessarily end the prosecution nor bar the State from preferring another indictment on the same charge. — State vs. Haskell, 3 Hill, 75; State vs. Howard, 15 Rich., 274. Much less can it always operate as an acquittal. This conclusion, however, by no means settles the main points involved in the question made by the appellant. We must consider the bearing and effect of the verdict against him. The term “ conspiracy,” according to the books, implies a combination between two or more to do either an unlawful act or to accomplish by unlawful means a legal end. The concurring will of at least two persons is as necessary to the offense as that of three to the constitution of a riot. The essential prerequisite of a concert between two or more to establish the charge of a conspiracy has led to changes and modifications in the general rules which attained and prevailed at common law in relation to offenses which might be committed by a single person. In regard to the “conspiracy,” Mr. Bishop, in his second volume on Criminal Procedure, § 168, says: “There is no one of the recognized crimes which in matter of law as well as of pleading is more afloat than this.” In his first volume, § 960, he says: “The offense of conspiracy being committed only where more persons than one join in the act of wrong-doing, rests upon somewhat different ground in respect to the matter of separate trial than most other offenses. Here may indeed be separate trials for this offense, as, for instance, if only one appears to the indictment he may be tried alone, especially if he so requests. And where one of two conspirators who are jointly indicted dies before trial, the living one
As the motion to arrest the judgment must prevail, it is only necessary to notice very briefly so much of the grounds for a new trial as alleges error on the part of the Court in allowing the State to prove declarations made by its own witness entirely contradictory of his statement on the stand. While a party is allowed great latitude in examining an unwilling witness, though his own, he is not at liberty either to attack his credibility directly or to prove declarations inconsistent with his evidence in Court. Such a course would, in fact, give greater effect to what a witness might say when not under the obligation of an oath than is to be accorded to him when testifying with all the sanction and responsibility which it imposes.
The motion in arrest of judgment is granted.
I am of opinion that the granting of a nol. pros. after the jury were charged with the case ought to have the same effect as an acquittal in arresting judgment.