Case ID: scl_47/html/0027-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "O’Neall, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State vs. Robert Pitts.
    
      Indictment — Fraudulently packing Cotton.
    
    To sustain an indictment for fraudulently packing cotton, it is not enough to show that the cotton was fraudulently packed, and that it was packed at defendant’s gin, in charge of white employees ; the guilty knowledge of defendant should also he shown.
    BEFORE WHITNER, J., AT LAURENS, SPRING TERM, 1860.
    The report of his Honor, the presiding Judge, is as follows:
    “ The defendant was indicted for fraudulently packing cotton, under an Act of Legislature, 6 Stat. 180, and upon the evidence reported, was convicted at the present term by a very intelligent jury, after full argument.
    “ The defendant was a man of large property,' acquired by his own industry and management; the owner of mills and a cotton gin, which were superintended by white persons, hirelings, assisted by slaves of the defendant, who conducted the business of ginning and packing cotton occasionally for his neighbors, for toll, though his gin was mainly employed in the preparation of his own cotton.
    “I presume the jury did not credit the employees examined as witnesses, otherwise they could not have been satisfied that the cotton had been falsely packed, much less with the guilty knowledge and direction of defendant. •
    “ Their credibility was strongly assailed in the argument, and in this connection allusion was made to different views presented, and which constitute a subject of complaint.
    “The importance of securing trustworthy employees, and of holding to a proper accountability one undertaking an employment or business so essential to commercial confidence, was freely remarked upon, but in matter or manner in no way calculated to prejudice the defendant in the case made. Care was taken to insure a proper distinction as to the respective liabilities that might attach, whether on the civil or criminal side of the Court, and ¿specially calculated to guard the defendant from being held to answer in this form of proceeding for the acts of slaves or hirelings. The terms of the Act as well as general principles were interposed as leading to an acquittal, unless the proof should satisfy the j ury of a guilty knowledge and direction of defendant.”
    The defendant appealed, and now moved this Court for a new trial, on the following grounds:
    1. Because there was no proof whatever that the defendant packed the cotton in question, or knew how it was packed.
    2. Because the proof of the prosecutor as well as that of John Craig and Bartlett Waldrop was, that the defendant was at home sick, two miles oflj while the cotton was being ginned and packed, and the prosecutor was told by the defendant when he applied to have his cotton ginned and packed that he, the prosecutor, must see to it himself, as defendant was unable to do so, and the prosecutor was frequently there about it.
    3. Because the witnesses, Craig and Waldrop, who ginned and packed the cotton, both swore that no water was put on it at the gin or screw, and that it was as well put up as it was possible to do, considering the wet and trashy condition of the cotton when it was brought to the gin by the. prosecutdr.
    4. Because the damaged condition of the prosecutor’s cotton was occasioned by his own negligence in letting it remain in the field until it was injured before it was picked out, then carrying it to the gin wet and through the rain, and after it was packed, then letting it remain in an open lot without cover for near three months before he offered it for sale, when the injury was discovered.
    5. Because his Honor told the jury that there was no hardship in holding the defendant to a strict accountability for the acts of his employees, and in presuming ordinarily that he knew what was done, when all such presumptions were fully rebutted by the uncontradicted proof of the case.
    6. Because the case made did not come within the provisions of the Act of the Legislature, and the conviction of the defendant was an outrage upon law and justice.
    
      Sullivan and Simpson for motion.
    The ease made does not come within the provisions of the Act of 1822.
    A verdict without evidence is against law. Uxors. Wight-man vs. Butler, 2 Sp. 359; City Council vs. Tálele, 3 Rich. 301; Bogan vs. Ashby, 1 Strob. 435; Brassfielcl vs. Brown, 4 Rich. 298 ; Yerdier vs. Trowell, 6 Rich. 169 ; The State of South Carolina vs. Goettie, 7 Rich. 126; McNair vs. So. Ca. Railroad Company, 10 Rich. 284. New trial ordered on a question of fact — the verdict having nothing to sustain it, and being therefore capricious.
    
      Reid, solicitor, contra.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

O’Neall, C. J.

The Act of 1822 provides that from and after the 1st day of March then next ensuing, if any person or persons whomsoever shall be convicted, in any Court of Sessions of this State, of knowingly and wilfully packing or putting into any bale or bales of cotton any stone, wood, trash cotton, cotton seed, or any matter or thing whatsoever, or causing the same to be done, to the purpose or intent of cheating or defrauding any person or persons whomsoever in the sale of such cotton, or shall exhibit, or offer for sale, any such cotton, knowing the same to be so fraudulently packed, he shall, on conviction thereof, as aforesaid, for the first offence be sentenced to pay a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, nor less than ten dollars, and to be im-prisoned for a term of not more than six months, and not less than one month. 6 Stat. 180.

The cotton when examined, one bale was rotten through, two others were rotten and wet to the centre. It was ginned and packed at the gin and screw of defendant by his employees, two white men and his negroes. From the testimony of the prosecutor, his cotton was in good order when it went to the gin, and was so kept after it was packed that it could not have been seriously injured by wet. This makes out a strong case that it was iuet-joac7&ed at the gin. But it does not show any fact from which the guilty knowledge of the defendant ought to be inferred. To establish his guilt, it must be shown that he knowingly and wilfully” caused the cotton to be water-packed. His employee, Oraig, testified to the fact that the prosecutor’s cotton was so wet he had to stop ginning ; the other, Waldrop, who managed the screw, swears that the defendant was not present and that the cotton was packed without the use of water. The judge tells us that the conviction was the result that the jury did not believe Craig and Waldrop. Their credibility was strongly assailed. It is not the first time that defendants have suffered from the use of such witnesses; still I do not think in a case such as this that their want of credit should fix a conviction on the defendant; if they were discredited, still there is no proof that the defendant knew how the cotton was packed.

The motion for a new trial is granted.

Johnstone, J., and Wardlaw, J., concurred.

Motion granted.