Case Name: The State against Welch
Court: South Carolina Court of Common Pleas
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1791-05
Citations: 1 Bay 172
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State against Welch.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 1
Pages: 172–172

Head Matter:
The State against Welch.
No person, under the negro act, shall be permitted to exculpate himself by his own oath, for killing a negro, but the master, overseer, or some person having theimmediate charge of such negro<,
IN September sessions, an indictment was preferred against the prisoner, for murdering a negro slave, the property of Mr. Radcliffe. On the trial, it appeared that the prisoner had taken up the negro on some pretext or other, and afterwards carried him on board of a schooner he then commanded ; where, either in attempting to tie him, or secure him from going off, he threw a lead-line round the negro’s neck, and strangled him.
After the evidence for the prosecution was closed,
Pinckney, counsel for the prisoner,
stated that there was no person present when the affair happened but the parties themselves, and offered the prisoner’s exculpatory oath under the negro act, which enacts, “ That if any slave shall “ suffer in life or limb, when no white person is present, the 5£ owner or other person who shall have the care of, and in “ whose possession or power such slave shall be, deemed u guilty of such offence, and shall be proceeded against ac« a cordingly, without further proof; unless such owner or “ other person do make the contrary appear by evidence, or 46 exculpate himself by his oath,” &c. Sed per

Opinion:
Tot. Curiam.
This oath in exculpation is only to be permitted or allowed to masters, overseers, or others, having the charge or care of negroes 5 and not to 'those who have not immediately the direction of them.
The prisoner was found guilty of manslaughter; and the court sentenced him to pay a fine of SOI. sterling, and stand committed till paid.