State v. Workman

Citations

• 15 S.C. 540
• 1881 S.C. LEXIS 105

Syllabus

<p>1. A person indicted under Chapter CXXIX, Section 4, of the General Stat- ' utes, for burning a frame prepared for building, is entitled to only five peremptory challenges.</p> <p>2. Whether a confession has been free and voluntary depends in large measure upon the circumstances of the case, and is a question for the Circuit judge in his discretion to decide.</p> <p>3. To render a confession admissible in evidence, it is not necessary that the prisoner should be forewarned of the effect his confession may have.</p> <p>4. The confession of one of the defendants implicated himself and his co-defendant ; while this confession was not evidence as against the other party, there was no error in permitting the full statement of the prisoner to be proved, without suppression of the name of the co-defendant, the jury having been properly instructed that it was evidence only against the party who made it.</p> <p>5. Two men being jointly tried for the same crime, the wife of one of them is not a competent witness for her husband, nor as to any common ground of defence, for the other defendant.</p> <p>6. On motion for new trial upon the ground of after-discovered evidence, the affidavits did not show that such evidence could not by due diligence have been discovered before the trial. The motion was properly refused by the Circuit judge.</p> <p>7. This court cannot look into the evidence to determine whether the verdict is sustained by the facts proved, but must assume that the charge made in the indictment-was sufficiently established.</p>