State v. Mays

Citations

• 24 S.C. 190
• 1886 S.C. LEXIS 22

Syllabus

<p>1. After voluntary appearance and trial before a trial justice, the defendant cannot object that the warrant was not signed by the officer.</p> <p>2. The affidavit which is the foundation of the whole joroceeding in a trial justice’s court (Gen. Stat., § 830), is insufficient where it fails to set forth plainly and substantially whether the offence charged was a trespass on real estate (which is beyond the jurisdiction of a trial justice, Ibid., $ 2501), or an entry upon the lands of another after notice forbidding the same. Ibid., $ 2507.</p> <p>3. The demand for a jury in a trial justice’s court, made by defendant after the State has closed its case, comes too late.</p> <p>4. It wras error in a trial justice to refuse to correct the testimony of the prosecuting witness on an essential point, when the witness testified that he had made a mistake.</p> <p>5. It was error to refuse to permit witnesses for the defence to testify to the state of feeling between the prosecutor ancl the landlord of the defendant, and then to receive such testimony from the State in reply.</p> <p>6. Witness must be notified of time, place, and person, when it is intended to prove inconsistent statements by him, but it does not appear that this rule was violated in this case.</p> <p>7. The failure of the trial justice to endorse upon the information his finding of guilty, was a mere irregularity, which cannot avail the defendant on appeal.</p> <p>8. A party put into possession of land by the owner, but forbidden to enter by one claiming to be a lessee for two years under a verbal lease, cannot be convicted of misdemeanor in so entering, under section 2507 of the General Statutes, oven if such parol lease might be sustained in a court of equity under the principle of part performance.</p>