Case Name: The State v. Daniel Baldwin
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1831-12
Citations: 2 Bail. 541
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State v. Daniel Baldwin.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 18
Pages: 541–543

Head Matter:
The State v. Daniel Baldwin.
The informer is intitled to a moiety of the fine, imposed upon conviction on an indictment, under the act of 1817, for trading with a slave without aticket. The provision in favor of the informer, contained in the act of 1796, in relation to the same offence, is not repealed by the act of 1817 ; and the two acts must be construed tit pari materia.
Before Mr. Justice Evans, at Sumter, Fall Term, 1831.
This was a rule upon the sheriff, to shew cause, why he should not be ordered to pay over to the Commissioners of Public Building^ for Sumter District, the amount of afine imposed on the defendant, upon bis conviction on an indictment, under the act of 1817, for trading with a slave without a ticket, and which he had paid into the hands of the sheriff. The sheriff shewed for cause, that a moiety of the said fine was claimed by the members of the Vigilant Society of Stateburg, as informers.
Acts ofl827, p. 34,
A^tsof 1817,
The presiding Judge was of opinion, that the cause shewn was insufficient. The act of 1827, directs, that all fines and forfeitures, incurred and imposed in any Court of Sessions, shall be paid to the Commissioners of Public Buildings for the district; with a reservation, however, of the rights of informers, where the whole, or any part, of any fine, or forfeiture, is given to them by any act heretofore passed. The act of 1817, under which the defendant had been fined, gave no part of the fine to the informer; and the Commissioners of Public Buildings were, therefore, intitled to the whole of it. It is true, that the act of 1796, 2 Faust, 91, which was levelled against the same offence, did give one half of the fine to the informer; but the defendant was not convicted under that act, and the act of 1817 contains no similar provision. A good reason for the omission readily suggests itself. The informer is generally the only witness of the fact, and his interest in the penalty renders him incompetent; so that a provision in favour of the informer tends, in practice, to defeat the law.
The case of the State v. Van Evour, 2 N. & M. 309, note, perhaps, conflicts with this conclusion. It was there decided, that the acts of 1784, and 1801, to prevent retailing without license, were to be regarded pari materia; and the informer was held to be intitled to a moiety of the fine, although the provision in his favour in the first act is omitted in the last. There is some distinction between that case and this. The act of 1801 merely reduces the penalty, and obyiously refers to the previous act as remaining, in other respects, of force. The act of 1817 increases the pecuniary penalty, superadds imprisonment, and contains within itself an entire body of legislation in relation to the offence. It supersedes the act of '1796 in all its provisions, and neither expressly, nor by necessary implication, leaves any part of them of force. If, however, there were no substantial reason for a difference of construction in the two cases, it will be seen, that in ,Van Evour’s case, the Court rested the decision, rather on what had been, t;han what ought to have been the construction. The two acts, it is said “have always been regarded as pari materia.” Have the acts of 1796, and 1817, been always so regarded? If not, then the principle of Van Evour’s case, which is nothing more than stare decisis, does not apply. Whatever may have been the practice elsewhere, in the Northern Circuit, at least, from 1817 to the present time, the two acts have never been construed together; but the informer has always been held to have no interest in the fine imposed by the act of 1817.
His Honor, therefore, made the rule absolute; and the sheriff on behalf of the informers, now moved to reverse his decision, and to discharge, or modify the rule.
Mayrant, for the motion.
Haynesworth, contra.

Opinion:
O'Neall, J.
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The act of 1817 increases the penalties, imposed by the act of 1796, on persons guilty of tradingwith slaves ; but contains no provision repealing it. It makes no alteration of the act of 1796, in express terms, or by necessary implication, as to the rights of the informer. The provision made by it in favour of him, is still a subsisting law. The two acts must be construed in pari materia, and read together. Substitute the act of 1817 for the act of 1796, wherever they differ, and retain that portion of the latter, which makes provision for the informer, and all the difficulties, which are supposed to arise out of the fact, that the act of 1817 is silent as to the informer, are removed. Legally, it is to be presumed, that the Legislature, by pursuing this course, intended to leave the rights of the informer in the same situation, in which they found them to stand, by the act of 1796. There has not been, so far as I am aware' of, any general and uniform construction of the act of 1817, by either the bench or the bar at nisi prius, on the question now under consideration. The cases of the State against Súber were the first convictions under it, and in them, the prosecutor received one half of the fine: We are, therefore, under no embarrassment from a previous practice at war with our present conclusion. Van Evour's case, 2 N. & M. 309, note, is, in principle, the very case now before the Court, and is decisive of it. The motion to reverse the decision of the Judge below is therefore granted.
Motion granted.