Court Opinion

ID: 9569009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:09:41.190244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:19:00.540820
License: Public Domain

GOOLSBY, J.
(concurring in result):.
I concur in the result reached by the majority, that an Ohio conviction for the crime of abduction does not qualify as a *343second or subsequent conviction under S.C.Code Ann. § 24-21-640 (Supp.2002), a statute that prohibits the Board of South Carolina Probation, Parole and Pardon Services from granting a parole to a “prisoner serving a second or subsequent conviction ... for violent crimes as defined in Section 16-1-60.” I simply differ with the majority in how we should arrive at that conclusion.
The respondent Jack L. Hinton, a prisoner serving a sentence for kidnapping since his conviction in 1992 in Greenville County, South Carolina, once served a sentence of from three to ten years following his conviction in 1986 in Hamilton County, Ohio, for the offense of abduction, an offense proscribed by Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2905.02 (2002).
Section 24-21-640 provides in part as follows:
The board must not grant parole nor is parole authorized to any prisoner serving a sentence for a second or subsequent conviction, following a separate sentencing for a prior conviction, for violent crimes as defined in Section 16-1-60.
At the time of his conviction in South Carolina in 1992, S.C.Code Ann. § 16-1-60 (1991),1 provided in relevant part:
For purposes of definition under South Carolina law, a violent crime includes the offenses of ... kidnapping....
A related statute, S.C.Code Ann. § 16-1-70 (1991), defined a “nonviolent crime” as including “all offenses not specifically enumerated in Section 16-1-60.”
Subsequent amendments to Section 16-1-60,2 among other things, added code sections to identify the offenses defined as violent crimes and a second sentence which reads, “Only those offenses specifically enumerated in this section are considered violent offenses.”
Because Section 16-1-60 is a penal statute, its terms must be strictly construed against the State and in favor of the defendant.3 We, as judges, can add nothing to the words of *344the statute either by inference or intendment but must construe those words literally.'4
At no point in its history has Section 16-1-60 defined the offense of abduction in violation of Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2905.02 (2002) as a violent crime. That offense throughout has not been one “specifically enumerated in Section 16-1-60.” According a strict construction to Section 16-1-60 and a liberal construction to Section 16-1-70, we can only conclude that the term “violent crime,” as used in Section 16-1-60 does not include the offense of abduction in violation of Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2905.02 (2002).
This court’s decision in State v. Zulfer,5 a case that dealt with S.C.Code Ann. § 16-11-311(A)(2) (Supp.2000), does not aid the State. The wording that statute employs differs considerably from that of Section 16-1-60.

. See Act No. 184, 1993 S.C. Acts 3239.

. See Act No. 7, 1995 S.C. Acts 50; Act No. 83, 1995 S.C. Acts 556; Act No. 113, 1997 S.C. Acts 524; Act No. 136, 1997 S.C. Acts 688; Act No. 402, 1998 S.C. Acts 2450; Act No. 261, 2000 S.C. Acts 1929.

. State v. Cutler, 274 S.C. 376, 378, 264 S.E.2d 420, 420-21 (1980).

. State v. Lewis, 141 S.C. 207, 220-21, 139 S.E. 386, 391 (1927).

. 345 S.C. 258, 547 S.E.2d 885 (Ct.App.2001), cert. dismissed, 353 S.C. 537, 579 S.E.2d 317 (2003).