Court Opinion

ID: 9605855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:42:44.042745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:53.949181
License: Public Domain

Bussey, Justice
(dissenting) :
Being convinced that there was prejudicial error and that the appellant should be granted a new trial, I most respectfully dissent.
The trial judge, over the strenuous objection of the appellant, allowed testimony as to threats allegedly made *36against one McDowell by appellant and as to a difficulty between appellant and Lester Cox, all of which occurred approximately a week prior to the homicide. Admitted into evidence, over objection, was considerable evidence as to the details of these events. As McDowell was not involved in or connected with the altercation or confrontation which resulted in the homicide, evidence as to threats allegedly made by appellant against McDowell was totally irrelevant to any issue in the case, highly prejudicial and, of course, the admission thereof was erroneous.
Assuming, without deciding, that it was permissible to prove the prior difficulty between appellant and Lester Cox, it is well settled by a long line of decisions in this State that His Honor was in error in permitting evidence as to details of such difficulty. See State v. Clinkscales, 231 S. C. 650, 99 S. E. (2d) 663, and the numerous cases therein cited.
His Honor was also in error, I think, in excluding evidence tending to prove that the deceased was the aggressor in bringing on the altercation between the deceased and Lane, which altercation pursued to its finality, resulted in the death of the deceased. It was appellant’s contention throughout the trial that he fired at Lester Cox in self-defense. An essential element of the plea of self-defense is, of course, proof that the defendant was without fault in bringing on the difficulty which resulted in the death of the decedent. Proof that the decedent, himself, was the aggressor and at fault in bringing on the difficulty is as strong proof as a defendant could offer that he, himself, was without fault. That the appellant did not see the decedent at the moment of firing the fatal shot is, I think, entirely beside the point. The proffered evidence, excluded by the judge, tended to prove that the deceased provoked and pursued an altercation with Lane on the night of the fatality and that but for his aggressive pursuit of such altercation neither he nor his brother Lester would have even been at the scene of the fatality. The excluded evidence, being clearly relevant on the issue of who was at fault in bringing on the fatal *37difficulty, needless to say its exclusion was highly prejudicial. I would reverse the decision of the lower court and remand for a new trial.