Rogers v. Marlboro County

Citations

• 32 S.C. 555
• 11 S.E. 383
• 1890 S.C. LEXIS 84

Syllabus

<p>1. A warrant for the arrest of a person charged with a failure to pay his poll tax, which is a misdemeanor, is not a process for the collection of a tax, within the meaning of section 172 of the General Statutes, which declares that no costs shall be allowed, except where the taxes are actually collected. For searches made under such warrant the County is liable to the sheriff for his costs.</p> <p>2. If the provision malting the non-payment of the poll tax a misdemeanor be limited to the year to which the tax act was limited — but a like provision occurs in all the annual tax acts — still the sheriff would be entitled to his costs on warrants issued and placed in his hands by the proper officer.</p> <p>3. The act of 1884 (18 Stat., 736), which forbids nulla bona costs to sheriffs on judgments or executions in the Courts of General Sessions, does not apply to this case, where warrants were issued by a trial justice for the non-payment of the poll tax, and the defendants could not be found within the county — because (1) the cases were not in the Court of General Sessions ; (2) no judgments have been entered or executions issued ; and (3) the costs claimed are not nulla bona costs.</p> <p>4. The costs here claimed are expressly given by section 622 of the General Statutes, which is not repealed directly or by implication by the act of 1884, supra.</p> <p>6. The act provides a punishment for those residents of the county who' fail and refuse to pay the poll tax ; the affidavit and warrant alleged only a neglect to pay, and did not state that defendants were residents, of the county. Held, that the offence was plainly and substantially set forth, and that is all that the law requires in the affidavit and warrant.</p> <p>6. Whether warrants put into a sheriff’s hands are regular or irregular, it is his duty to execute them.</p> <p>Mr. Justice McGowan, dissenting.</p>