‘Hand of one, hand of all’: Judge denies bond to killer and accomplice in North Charleston shootout (2024)

Two men charged with murder in the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old during a North Charleston shootout last year will both remain in jail without bond, a judge ruled June 5.

Police and prosecutors believe Kasaun Floyd fired the gunshot that killed Jacari Smith and that Carlos Bennett acted as a getaway driver and later disposed of the gun used to kill Smith.

Charleston County Circuit Judge Bentley Price employed the "hand of one, hand of all" doctrine to deny both of their bond requests.

Assistant Solicitor Mallory Haliena named Floyd the "most-culpable defendant," and Melisa Gay, Bennett's lawyer, said during Bennett's bond hearing that her client at the time of the offense had no idea that the shootout had even occurred.

Price treated their bond requests the same on June 5.

Gay told The Post and Courier this is an instance of South Carolina's "hand of one, hand of all" doctrine, where all participants in a crime can be charged with all crimes committed in pursuit of that crime.

"We would like for you to see (Bennett) differently than Mr. Floyd,” Gay pleaded to Price. “He's not the person who went and actually ended up in a shootout ... He did make very, very bad decisions."

Smith was the only person killed in the Dec. 28, 2023, shootout at the Fairwind-Oakfield Apartments in Summerville. Bennett and Floyd drove to the apartment complex to buy marijuana from the sister of Bennett's ex-girlfriend. They were met by three armed men wearing ski masks.

Bennett initially pulled out of the parking lot but didn't get far before Floyd demanded he stop the black Toyota RAV4. Floyd grabbed Bennett's assault rifle and got out of the backseat to confront their assailants, Haliena said. Then the shooting began.

Around 12 gunshots from three different guns lit up the scene, according to an initial report. Floyd's lawyer corroborated and said investigators found three different gun cartridges at the scene.

Bennett picked Floyd back up after the shooting, and they drove to Bennett's apartment, where Bennett disposed of the gun, according to an arrest warrant. After that, the two men fled.

Police tracked Bennett's car, whose tags were clocked by a camera at the crime scene, to a friend's house in Georgia the same night.

Bennett confessed everything to the police. Floyd was arrested in Summerville over a month later on Feb. 14.

The "hand of one, hand of all" doctrine states that even if only one person pulled the trigger, everyone involved can be convicted as an accomplice — and subject to the same penalties as the primary defendant — if the state can prove they were present at the crime, knew the crime was happening and participated in the crime in some way.

This doctrine only went into effect in 2006.It was also used to charge three men with murder in a North Charleston drive-by shooting in 2015, though only one man fired the shot that killed an innocent mother of three.

Neither Floyd nor Bennett spoke at their bond hearings which were conducted consecutively. Smith's family sat in the front row, but no one addressed the courtroom or the defendants.