Case ID: scl_19/html/0048-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Johnson J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State v. Geo. M. Bates.
    This was an application made before His Honor, Judge Earle, at Chambers, for a writ of prohibition be directed to a company court martial, for the trial of defaulters, to restrain the collection of certain imposed on C. G. Snellgrove and William Shelly not attending a muster of the beat eomjiany in wfiic'n they resided in the district of Edgefield. The ground relied on by the relators to obtain the writ of was, that they were not liable to perform militia duty in the beat in question, inasmuch as they then, and had been several years enrolled members of a volunteer light infantry company in the district of Newberry, in which they had done regular militia duty. The beat company has not been redu-below thirty men, nor has a greater portion of infantry than is authorised bylaw, been raised in the regiment to which the volunteer company is attached. e
    
    authorizing1Stho frc”?aofin?e|i-“del voiunteer co^-shouMhave1»^ !n°thS•*°emo1 Se m¿ít‘ei or IS: ™b"« of a had Cemoii”d íSbeiVseSof “a meat and im-of the beat m which they reside, they are empt from the miiitia^uty, such beat
    xhe same defence had been relied on before the court martial. The volunteer company is not only of the regiment in which the relators reside, hut out Qf t¡ie priga¿e and the division.
    
      His Honor held that the Court-martial did not err in point of law, and that the relators were properly fined.
    He also held on the authority of the case of the State v. Wakely, 2 N. & M’C., that excess of jurisdiction is the only ground of interference by prohibition, not mere error oí judgment; and on these grounds refused the motion.
    The relators appeal from his decision, and move the Court of Appeals to reverse the same, and to grant them the writ of prohibition, on the grounds:
    1. That the relators were not liable to muster in the beat company, and the fines were therefore imposed contrary to law.
    2. That the circuit judge ought to have granted the writ of prohibition, as he was by law authorized to do.
    Pope & Heller, for the motion.
   Johnson J.

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We are perfectly satisfied that the judgment in this case is right. The authority given by the act of 1815, to officers commanding regiments, to permit volunteer companies of infantry to be raised in their respective commands, to officers commanding brigades to permit companies of artillery and cavalry to be formed within their commands,never contemplated that the officer commanding a regiment or brigade, should have authority to enrol in their service the privates of another regiment or brigade. The obvious intention was to authorize the officer of the brigade or regiment to organize volunteer companies of their own privates, and within their own limits and commands, and words more apt could not have been used to express that idea. Instances may have occurred in which this rule has been violated, and where volunteer companies have been made up by enrollments from different regiments ; and where it has been done with the consent of the commanding officers, it certainly would form an excuse for not performing ordinary militia duty in the beat company in which the party resided, bat here the relators claim it as a personal right, which cannot be sustained. This view supersedes the other questions that have been raised in the grounds of appeal.

Motion dismissed.

Note — This case was one arising out of the former military command of O’Neali, X He therefore gave no opinion.