State v. Aiken

THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

In The Court of Appeals

The
State,        Respondent,

v.

Carl Stanley
Aiken,        Appellant.

Appeal From Anderson County

J. C. Nicholson, Jr., Circuit Court
Judge

Unpublished Opinion No. 2004-UP-122

Submitted December 23, 2003- Filed February 25, 2004

AFFIRMED

Assistant Appellate Defender Eleanor Duffy Cleary,
of S.C. Office of Appellate Defense, of Columbia, for Appellant.

Attorney General Henry Dargan McMaster, Chief Deputy Attorney
General John W. McIntosh, Assistant Deputy Attorney General Charles H. Richardson,
Senior Assistant Attorney General, all of Columbia; and Solicitor Druanne D.
White, of Anderson, for Respondent.

PER CURIAM: Carl Stanley Aiken appeals from
his conviction and sentence for breach of trust with fraudulent intent.  In
a sealed sentence, the trial court sentenced Aiken to a term of ten years imprisonment.
Aiken contends the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to entertain
the case because the grand jury did not true bill the indictment.  Aiken is
mistaken.  The endorsement “True Bill” is stamped on the indictment, the original
of which is on file in the office of the Clerk of Court for the South Carolina
Court of Appeals.  The trial court, therefore, had subject matter jurisdiction
of the offense.  S.C. Const. art. 1, § 11 (Supp. 2003) (“No person may be held
to answer for any crime the jurisdiction over which is not within the magistrate's
court, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury of the county where
the crime has been committed.”); see also Anderson v. State, 338
S.C. 629, 632, 527 S.E.2d 398, 399-400 (Ct. App. 2000) (holding that the law
requires a presentment of a grand jury as a condition precedent to the trial
of a crime, excepting certain minor offenses).

AFFIRMED.
[1]

GOOLSBY and HOWARD, JJ., and CURETON, A. J.,
concur.

[1]   We decide this case without oral argument pursuant to Rule
215, SCACR.