§ 2-1 Murder
The defendant in this case is charged with murder. What is murder?
Murder is defined as the willful, felonious killing of a human being by a human being with malice aforethought, that malice being either express malice or implied malice.
Section 16-3-10 of the South Carolina Code provides: Murder is "the killing of any person with malice aforethought, either express or implied." The State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant killed another person with malice aforethought.
The presence of malice is a required element of murder. Malice is defined as being hatred or ill-will. Malice, in its legal sense, does not necessarily import ill-will toward the individual injured, but signifies rather a general malignant recklessness of the lives and safety of others, or a condition of the mind which shows a heart regardless of social duty and fatally bent on mischief. Malice is the wrongful intent to injure another person. It indicates a wicked or depraved spirit intent on doing wrong. Malice is a legal term implying wickedness and excluding a just cause or excuse. It is the doing of a wrongful act intentionally and without just cause or excuse. The term malice indicates a formed purpose and design to do a wrongful act under the circumstances that exclude any legal right to do it.
Malice may be either express or implied. The words "express or implied" add nothing to the meaning of the word "malice." They do not imply different kinds of malice, but merely the manner in which the only kind known to the law may be shown to exist—that is, either by positive evidence or by inference. Express malice is when there is a deliberate intention to unlawfully take the life of another. Implied malice is when circumstances demonstrate a wanton or reckless disregard for human life or a reasonably prudent man would have known that according to common experience there was a plain and strong likelihood that death would follow the contemplated act.
Although malice must be aforethought, there is no requirement that it must exist for any appreciable length of time before the commission of the act. It may be conceived at the very moment the act occurs. There must be a combination of the evil intent and of the act producing the result.
? See S.C. Code Ann. § 17-19-30 (2003) ("Every indictment for murder shall be deemed and adjudged sufficient and good in law which, in addition to setting forth the time and place, together with a plain statement, divested of all useless phraseology, of the manner in which the death of the deceased was caused, charges that the defendant did feloniously, willfully and of his malice aforethought kill and murder the deceased."); Winns v. State, 363 S.C. 414, 611 S.E.2d 901 (2005) (quoting § 17-19-30); Joseph v. State, 351 S.C. 551, 571 S.E.2d 280 (2002), overruled on other grounds by State v. Gentry, 363 S.C. 93, 610 S.E.2d 494 (2005) (finding murder indictment was sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on court that accepted defendant's guilty plea, even though indictment omitted the words "willfully" and "feloniously," as the term "feloniously" was encompassed in "murder" and the term "willfully" was encompassed in "malice").
? S.C. Code Ann. § 16-3-10 (2003); State v. Reese, 370 S.C. 31, 633 S.E.2d 898 (2006); State v. Zeigler, 364 S.C. 94, 610 S.E.2d 859 (Ct. App. 2005); see also State v. Johnson, 291 S.C. 127, 128, 352 S.E.2d 480...
