Court Opinion

ID: 9583974
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:43:25.578644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:14.658884
License: Public Domain

Lewis, Chief Justice
(dissenting):
*114Appellant was charged in separate indictments with burglary, criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, and larceny. The indictments were joined for trial and appellant was convicted on all charges, receiving a sentence of life imprisonment for burglary, thirty (30) years for criminal sexual conduct, and ten (10) years for larceny, the first two sentences to run consecutively and the latter concurrently. He has appealed, challenging only his conviction for burglary. Under my view of the exceptions, we need only consider whether it was error for the lower court to refuse appellant’s pretrial motion to quash the indictment for burglary.
The indictment charging appellant with burglary alleges that he did, “in the nighttime, break and enter the dwelling house of another, . . . with intent to commit a felony therein.” He contends that the indictment is fatally defective for failure to specify the felony which he intended to commit. I agree.
This Court has had no previous occasion to determine the sufficiency of indictments under our code provision dealing with the crime of burglary. Section 16-11-310, Code of Laws of South Carolina (1976), speaks of “the crime of burglary at common law.” We have held that this language means the offense of breaking and entering the dwelling house of another in the nighttime with the intent to commit a felony therein. State v. Clamp, 225 S. C. 89, 101, 80 S. E. (2d) 918; State v. Clary, 24 S. C. 116, 117-118.
With regard to indictments this Court has also required that the offense be stated with sufficient certainty and particularity to enable the court to know what judgment to pronounce, the defendant to know what he is called upon to answer, and an acquittal or conviction may be pleaded in bar to any subsequent prosecution. State v. Solomon, 245 S. C. 550, 561, 141 S. E. (2d) 818. Clearly an indictment that fails to specify the felony which the accused intended to commit must also fail our test of sufficiency and should be quashed. This rule is in accord with the practice of other jurisdictions in which the common law definition of burglary applies. 12A C. J. S. Burglary, Section 54.
I would hold that the indictment which charged the appellant with burglary was fatally defective for failure to specify *115the felony which he intended to commit, and would remand with instructions to quash the indictment for burglary.