The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1914-10-08
Grand Jury Presentment.


General Sessions, Williamsburg
County:
We, the Grand Jury of Williams
burg county, do hereby respectfully
beg leave to submit this our final
report and presentment. With the
assistance of your Honor's clear,
concise and able instructions on the
questions of law, we have, to the
best of our ability and judgment,
handled all bills presented by the
Solicitor, true bills having been by
US returned in all cases, with one
exception.
1t has been brought to our atten-
ton that one of the prisoners, Ernest
Williams, tried and convicted at this
term Of the court, has recently been
severely and inhumanly whipped by
the Jailor. From the information
received by US, we are firmly of the
opinion that the very severe punish
ment inflicted on this prisoner was
without justification. We under
stand that the punishment referred
to above was inflicted upon this
prisoner with buggy trace, and in
such a manner as to leave him in a
very bad physical condition. While
deploring the occurrence of such an
event in our Jail, we respectfully
request your Honor to admonish the
Jailor and Sheriff against the use of
such similar treatment to prisoners,
and upon the recurrence of such
severe and unusual punishment, we
recommend that the Sheriff replace
the present Jailor with some other
person from whom prisoners under
his charge will be accorded more
humane treatment.
We have also been definitely in
formed that similar case of whip
ping has recently taken place on the
county chaingang. the prisoner in
this last mentioned instance being
% severely whipped that he was in
capacitated for work for three
weeks. We positively recommend
the immediate cessation of such
treatment to prisoners Of this coun-
ty, and upon the disregard of this
admonition, we recommend that, in
the proper cases, the Solicitor pre-
pare and submit to US his indict-
ments against these officers.
At the last term of this court, a
special cammittee of this grand
jury was appointed to examine the
county offices and make it's report
at this term of the court. Under
the authority of this appointment,
the committee retained the services
of an expert accountant, Mr. Louis
A Searson, of the Comptroller Cen
erals office, and had made a COM
plete audit of the books in all offices,
including the Magistrates and Con-
stables. The audits of Mr. Louis A
Searson, expert accountant, are
herewith presented to your Honor,
as a part of this report, and identi-
fed as Exhibits "a" and "B". This
special committee was particularly
instructed to investigate a certain
irregularity alleged to have existed
in the office of the County Treasur-
er, charging this officer with having
collected interest on the county
funds, and transferring the same to
his personal account. The report
from this special committee, marked
Exhibit "C', having been adopted
by this grand jury as the report of
this body, and herewith attached as
a part of our report, establishes con-
clusively that the charges preferred
against the County Treasurer were
we'll founded, and are supported by
the evidence returned to this grand
jury by the special committee. We
respectfully request that the report
of the special committee, Exhibit
"C", be presented to your Honor,
and also the report of Mr. Louis A
Season, expert accountant, marked