Case Name: Lewis Brown v. Sergeant Griffin
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1839
Citations: 1 Chev. 32
Docket Number: 
Parties: Lewis Brown v. Sergeant Griffin.
Judges: Motion dismissed; Evans, Earle and Butler, JJ., concurring.
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 25
Pages: 32–33

Head Matter:
Lewis Brown v. Sergeant Griffin.
A “true bill” found, constitutes a presumption of probable cause for the prosecution, and a plaintiff in an action for malicious prosecution, who had proved his general good character and defendant’s malice, was yet nonsuited for want of express evi- - dence to rebut this presumption. .
Before Bichardson, J. at Pickens, Fall Term, 1839.
This was an action for a malicious prosecution. The plaintiff rested his case upon the defendant’s information on oath,— on which had ensued a warrant, an arrest, an indictment for perjury, and a “true bill” found by the grand jury; — upon evidence of his own general good character; upon the fact that the alleged ground of prosecution was an occurrence of twenty-seven years standing, which the defendant had been acquainted with all along; and upon the defendant’s admission (as witness on the trial) that a late quarrel with the plaintiff was, in part, his motive for proceeding against him. The Court ordered a nonsuit, because the plaintiff had made no showing of a want of probable cause for the prosecution.
See 3 Strob. 576. An.
The plaintiff moved to set aside the nonsuit.

Opinion:
Curia, per Eichardson, J.,
held that " where the grand jury have returned a true bill upon the charge made, such finding amounts to a judicial recognition that probable cause does exist. Hence arises a rule, that a plaintiff, suing for damages in such a case, must prove the absence of probable cause; and, if he fail to do so, such judicial recognition is prima facie proof of a probable cause."
And it was considered that, although the plaintiff's character might have given him a strong defence on his trial, and the staleness of the charge, coupled with the quarrel that ultimately gave rise to it, were pregnant evidence of the defendant's malice, (which is one of the essential grounds for this action,) yet they did not in the least tend to show that the prosecution had not been instituted, according to C. J. Marshall's definition, on " such circumstances as warrant suspicion." (Locke vs. U. States, 7 Cranch, 339.)
Motion dismissed; Evans, Earle and Butler, JJ., concurring.