State v. Blanding

THIS OPINION HAS NO PRECEDENTIAL VALUE.  IT SHOULD NOT BE
CITED OR RELIED ON AS PRECEDENT IN ANY PROCEEDING EXCEPT AS PROVIDED BY RULE
239(d)(2), SCACR.

THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

In The Court of Appeals

The State,       
Respondent,

v.

Ronald Blanding,       
Appellant.

Appeal From Dorchester County

Diane Schafer Goodstein, Circuit Court
Judge

Unpublished Opinion No. 2004-UP-653

Submitted December 1, 2004 – Filed December 22, 2004

AFFIRMED

Assistant Appellate Defender Robert M. Dudek, Office of Appellate
Defense, of Columbia, for Appellant.

Attorney General Henry Dargan McMaster, Chief Deputy Attorney
General John W. McIntosh, Assistant Deputy Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka,
Assistant Attorney General Derrick K. McFarland, all of Columbia; and Solicitor
Walter M. Bailey, Jr., of Summerville, for Respondent.

PER CURIAM:  Dorchester County grand jurors
indicted Ronald Blanding for murder.  At trial, Blanding petitioned the trial
judge to charge the jury with the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter. 
The trial judge rejected this request, and the jury found Blanding guilty as
charged.  Blanding appeals on the ground that the trial judge erred in failing
to instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter.  We affirm pursuant to Rule
220(b)(2), SCACR, and the following authorities:  Harris v. State, 354
S.C. 382, 387, 581 S.E.2d 154, 156 (2003) (providing voluntary manslaughter
is the unlawful killing of a human being in the sudden heat of passion upon
sufficient legal provocation); State v. Knoten, 347 S.C. 296, 302, 555
S.E.2d 391, 394 (2001) (holding the law to be charged must be determined from
the evidence presented at trial); State v. Byrd, 323 S.C. 319, 319, 474
S.E.2d 430, 430 (1996) (providing that in determining whether the evidence requires
a charge of voluntary manslaughter, appellate courts view the facts in a light
most favorable to the defendant); State v. Cole, 338 S.C. 97, 101, 525
S.E.2d 511, 513 (2000) (“To warrant a court’s eliminating the offense of manslaughter,
it should very clearly appear that there is no evidence whatsoever tending to
reduce the crime from murder to manslaughter.”); Cole, 338 S.C. at 101-02,
525 S.E.2d at 513 (“Both heat of passion and sufficient legal provocation must
be present at the time of the killing” to reduce murder to manslaughter.)  State
v. Hughey, 339 S.C. 439, 452, 529 S.E.2d 721, 728 (2000) (“Even when a person’s
passions were sufficiently aroused by a legally adequate provocation, if at
the time of the killing those passions had cooled or a sufficiently reasonable
time had elapsed so that the passions of the ordinary reasonable person would
have cooled, the killing would be murder and not manslaughter.”)

AFFIRMED. [1]

HEARN, C.J., and GOOLSBY and WILLIAMS,
JJ., concur.

[1]   We decide this case without oral argument pursuant to Rule 215,
and 220(b)(2) SCACR.