Case ID: scl_49/html/0017-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "DüNKIN, O. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State vs. Thomas J. Robertson. Same vs. W. A. Harris.
    
      Fines — In what currency payable.
    
    The Court in imposing a fine for a criminal offence, may direct that it shall he paid in gold, but if nothing he said as to the currency, it will he understood to be payable in the ordinary currency at the time.
    Fines imposed in March, 1867, on convictions for assault and battery, could not be discharged by payments in bills of the Bank of the State of South Carolina.
    BEFORE MOSES, J., AT RICHLAND, FALL TERM, 1867.
    The defendants were convicted of assault and battery, at Spring Term, 1867, on separate: indictments. The defendant, Robertson, was sentenced to pay ^a fine of $500, and the defendant Harris, a fine of $300, and executions were issued and lodged with the sheriff’ to enforce the payment of the fines. Each defendant tendered payment in bills of the Bank of the State of South Carolina, issued before 1861, which the sheriff declined to receive.
    These were rules on the sheriff, sued out both by the State and by the defendants: those by the State were to show cause why the sheriff had not enforced the executions, and those by the defendants to show cause why satisfaction should not be entered on the records on payment of the bills into Court.
    The report of his Honor, the presiding Judge, is'as follows:
    “ I held that the bills tendered were bills of the Bank <jf the State of South Carolina, and not of the State. That without proposing to commit myself as to the question whether the State was liable for the bills, or the debts of the Bank, I did not consider the sheriff bound to receive them in satisfaction of the fines imposed.
    “That thé Bank was a corporation established by the State, and to what extent the State may be liable, if at all, to bill holders, I did not propose to consider, as I did not regard the question necessary to the decision involved in the point before me, brought up in the form in which it is made.
    “ I held that the first clause of the Act, so far as any pledge of the State was involved, was only to the support of the Bank, and to furnish the assets to be provided as its capital. That if the faith of the State was pledged for the redemption of the bills to be issued by the Bank, the defendants could not avail themselves of the obligation in the form they now proposed.
    “ That I could not perceive how, under any assumption, the claim against the defendants was to be viewed as arising under a qui tarn action, or as also urged by the counsel representing the State, that the transfer of all fines imposed in and by this Court to the District Court for its support, at all changed the rights of the State, or of the defendants in the matter.
    “That if the defendants had any semblance of claim, it arose under the 16th Section of the Act establishing the Bank. That the words “ moneys due to the State,” I regarded as debts due to the State in the connection in which these words are used.
    “ That the legal acceptation of debt, is a sum of money due by agreement. That it could only arise by contract express or implied. That I could not perceive how the State by its refusal to accept the bills, impaired any contract with the defendants. That there certainly never was any contract between them to the effect that if the defendants should violate .the peace and dignity of the State, and on conviction, a penalty should be imposed, the State in satisfaction of, or atonement for it, was bound to receive the bills of the Bank, which would not realize in dollars the sum fixed and ordered to be collected.
    “ The sentence imposed was, in the one case the payment of a fine of $500, and in the other of $300. It was designed as punishment, and that was fixed by the sums respectively named. That the payment in any thing which would produce less, would reduce the punishment which the Court considered the proper one for the offence committed. That the payment could not be satisfied in bills which would not produce or make the amount in dollars.
    “I discharged the rules of the defendants and made those on the part of the State absolute.
    “ I remarked in passing, that the sheriff might receive the sums in U.'S. currency under the Act of Congress and the late order of the Military Department.”
    The defendants appealed on the grounds:
    1. That by the Act of the Legislature of 1812, it is made .the duty of all public officers to receive the bills of the Bank of the State, in payment of moneys due to the State.
    2. That the fine imposed by the Court is “ money due to the State ” in the meaning of the Act.
    
      McMaster, and Arthur, Melton and Melton, for the motion.
    
      Pope and Fielding, contra.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

DüNKIN, O. J.

At a Court of General Sessions held for Bichland District, in March, 1867, the defendant, Thomas J. Bobertson, was indicted and convicted of assault and battery, and by his Honor Judge Dawkins then presiding, was sentenced to pay’ a fine of five hundred dollars.

For an offence of similar character, of which he was found guilty at the same Court, the defendant, W. A. Harris, was sentenced to pay a fine of three hundred dollars.

On non-payment of these fines executions were issued, and on the returns thereon, the judgment of the Circuit •Court was announced, which is the subject of this appeal.

On the part of the defendants it is insisted that the ten-' der of bills of the Bank of the State of South Carolina, issued prior to the late war, to the amount of the fine, entitled them to have satisfaction entered on the execution.

A fine has been described as “amends, or pecuniary mulct for an offence committed.” In prosecutions of this character, the violation of the public peace having been judicially ascertained by the verdict of the jury, the purpose of the magistrate in passing sentence is not to cpm-pensate in,damages the party assaulted, but to vindicate the offended majesty of the law and punish the transgressor. It is within his discretion to inflict the punishment of fine, or imprisonment, or both. It would be competent for him to require as part of the sentence, that the penalty be paid in gold, or that the defendant stand committed until the fine be paid. The only limit to his judicial discretion is the provision of the constitution that “ excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel punishments inflicted.” • But what is the meaning of the sentence without such additional words ? Formerly there was no difficulty in determining what was meant by a sentence to pay a fine of five hundred dollars. The only kind of dollars recognized by the constitution was gold’ and silver. But, in later times, paper dollars not only constitute a large proportion of the currency of the country, but treasury notes, of this character, have been declared by Congress a legal tender. It may be necessary therefore to determine the proper interpretation of the sentence as expressing the intention-of the Judge. If the sheriff had declined to receive in satisfaction any thing but gold and silver, when tbe defendant tendered old bills of the Bank of the State, the issue would then have been directly presented. At the time when sentence was passed, (March, 1867,) the ordinary currency was United States treasury notes. Hone other was in circulation. Adopting the construction of the sheriff the execution could only be satisfied by the payment of about six hundred and seventy dollars in treasury notes; the defendants’ proffer amounted •to about fifty dollars, or less in the same currency. The Court must presume that the presiding Judge, in fixing the sentence, looked to the existing circumstances, to the ordinary currency in circulation, and affixed the pecuniary mulct accordingly. He did not intend that gold should be exacted, nor, on the other hand, that the public justice should be mocked by a mere semblance of satisfaction. Taking this view of the case, the Court is of opinion that the sheriff was well warranted in declining to receive five hundred dollars of bills of the Bank of the State in satisfaction of the execution. The Court deems it only necessary to add that, in the case of The Graniteville Manufacturing Company vs. Roper, recently heard in the Court of Errors, .the matters involved in the first and second grounds of appeal have been adjudicated adversely to the defendants..

It is ordered and adjudged that, in each case, the motion be dismissed.

Wardlaw and Inglis, A. J., concurred.

Motions dismissed.