Trial opens at Oconee Courthouse

On a cold day last winter, two men confronted each other in the parking lot of a West Union supermarket.  From that encounter, one man was left bloodied; the second man was arrested.  Yesterday trial opened in South Carolina vs. Damian Laurier Bennett.  The defendant is charged with assault and battery second degree.  According to the prosecutor, an aggressive rhetorical question of “What are you looking at?” was the genesis for what happened.  Because there was at the time no video surveillance in the Ingle’s parking lot, there exists no video evidence of what happened.  But Beth Blundy, assistant solicitor, told the jury there were eyewitnesses.  Blundy is prosecuting the case; defendant Bennett is representing himself which, according to the judge, is his right.  However, Judge McIntosh placed on the record that, prior to the start of the trial yesterday afternoon, he issued a Faretta warning to Bennett.  In legal parlance, the warning is a formal disclosure to a criminal defendant that goes into depth regarding the right to an attorney, as well as the risks of representing oneself.