Every indictment shall be deemed and judged sufficient and good in law which, in addition to allegations as to time and place, as required by law, charges the crime substantially in the language of the common law or of the statute prohibiting the crime or so plainly that the nature of the offense charged may be easily understood and, if the offense be a statutory offense, that the offense be alleged to be contrary to the statute in such case made and provided.
S.C. Code Ann. § 17-19-20
Allegations sufficient for indictment
Applied in 26 court decisions — leading case State v. Gentry (2005)
Most recently applied in State v. Baker (February 2015)
1962 Code SECTION 17-402; 1952 Code SECTION 17-402; 1942 Code SECTION 1003; 1932 Code SECTION 1003; Cr
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Carolina Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Carolina statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.