State v. Loftis

Moss, Justice.

The appellant, Reed Loftis, was tried and convicted at the February 1957 term of General Sessions Court for Anderson County, South Carolina, before the Honorable J. Henry Johnson, presiding Judge, upon an indictment charging him with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.

While the jury was deliberating, and after the case had been submitted to them, the trial Judge, in the absence of the jury, instructed the bailiffs to take the jurors to lunch. They proceeded to escort the jury to a restaurant about a block from the courthouse and when they arrived at the…