Court Opinion

ID: 9846257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:37:58.657134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:36.633061
License: Public Domain

Bussey, Justice
(concurring).
While some of the questions involved here are quite similar to some of the questions involved in State v. Greene et al., S. C. 180 S. E. (2d) 179, I am convinced that there was no real prejudice to the defendants in the instant case and accordingly concur in the majority opinion.
While, as pointed out in my dissent in Greene, it is error for a trial judge to refuse to exercise his discretion with respect to a motion properly addressed to and within his sound discretion, where a particular disposition of a motion is required as a matter of law, then no error can be predicated upon a failure to exercise discretion. In the instant case, in my view, neither the record nor the briefs disclose any facts which would have warranted the trial judge exercising his discretion in favor of a severance. It might be mentioned that only three people were being tried together and the offense for which they were indicted required the participation of three or more people. There being no alleged facts which would call into play the exercise of the discretion of the trial judge, it would follow that his failure to hear and consider the motion, even though concededly improper, was nonprejudicial.
Objections made in the course of the cross-examination of the appellant Sales and some of the defense witnesses are quite similar to some of the objections made in Greene. The rulings of the trial judge thereabout in the instant case *579were, however, quite different from the rulings in the Greene case, and here I am satisfied that His Honor by his rulings cured matters which otherwise might well have constituted prejudicial error.