Terms Used In South Carolina Code > Title 50 > Chapter 5 > Article 1 - General Provisions

• abandoned: means any watercraft that has been moored, stranded, wrecked, sinking, or sunk, and has been left unattended for longer than forty-five days. See South Carolina Code 50-21-10
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Bail: Security given for the release of a criminal defendant or witness from legal custody (usually in the form of money) to secure his/her appearance on the day and time appointed.
• Bang stick: means a device containing a charge mounted on a spear, pole, or other contrivance which is activated in order to stun or kill fish or other marine resource. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Boat: means a vessel. See South Carolina Code 50-21-10
• Bull rake: means a rake having a basket and a width greater than twelve inches. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Bushel: means one U. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Channel net: means any conical-shaped, fixed, or stationary net used for taking shrimp which:
  
  (a) is attached to poles, stakes, anchors, buoys, or other fixed objects; and
  
  (b) has a mesh size of less than two and one-half inches when the mesh is stretched; and is also known as a set net. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Commercial equipment: means :
  
  (a) any trawl, haul seine, gill net, channel net, bull rake, seed fork, grabs, escalator, or dredge; and
  
  (b) any net, seine, trap, pot, tongs, rake, fork, trotline, or other device or appliance when used for taking or attempting to take fish for a commercial purpose. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Commercial purpose: means :
  
  (a) being engaged in buying or selling fish;
  
  (b) taking or attempting to take fish in order to derive income or other consideration;
  
  (c) using commercial equipment; and
  
  (d) otherwise being engaged in the fisheries industry with the intent to derive income. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• convicted: means adjudication at trial or civil hearing and includes the entry of a plea of guilty, or nolo contendere, or the forfeiture of bail or collateral deposited to secure a defendant's appearance in court. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Department: means the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources unless otherwise stated. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Deposition: An oral statement made before an officer authorized by law to administer oaths. Such statements are often taken to examine potential witnesses, to obtain discovery, or to be used later in trial.
• Devise: To gift property by will.
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Dredge: means equipment used for harvesting bottom dwelling aquatic life which is not a trawl and is powered by mechanical means, and is designed to contact the bottom when in operation. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Fish: means finfish, shellfish including mollusks, crustaceans, horseshoe crabs, whelks (conchs), turtles, and terrapin or products thereof. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Fishing: means all activity and effort involved in taking or attempting to take fish. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Gill net: means a net which is designed to hang vertically and capture fish by entanglement usually of the head, gill covers, or preopercles, and does not include gill net for taking shad unless specified. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• Haul seine: means a net of twine no smaller than #9 with a stretched mesh size no smaller than two inches and no larger than two and seven-eighths inches, one end of which is anchored to the shore and the other end is moved through the water by a vessel to take fish by encircling the fish and then being mechanically drawn to the shore. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Herring: means all life stages of the river herrings being blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis) and alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus). See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Live rock: means living saltwater organisms or an assemblage of them attached to a hard substrate including dead coral or rock. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Mariculture: means controlled cultivation in confinement of marine and estuarine organisms in salt waters. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Marine resource: means any live, fresh, processed, or frozen whole, part, or portion of any marine organism, anadromous fish, or catadromous fish, to include shell deposits occurring upon or within state-owned bottoms and those lying above the mean high water mark if created by processes of natural accretion upon state-owned lands or bottoms. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Mile: means one nautical mile, being six thousand seventy-six feet. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• molluscan: means a member of the phylum Mollusca. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Nolo contendere: No contest-has the same effect as a plea of guilty, as far as the criminal sentence is concerned, but may not be considered as an admission of guilt for any other purpose.
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Operator: means the person who operates or has charge or command of the navigation or use of a vessel or watercraft. See South Carolina Code 50-21-10
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Owner: means a person, other than a lienholder, who claims lawful possession of a vessel or outboard motor by virtue of legal title or equitable interest in it which entitled him to possession. See South Carolina Code 50-21-10
• Person: means an individual, a partnership, a firm, a corporation, an association, or other legal entity. See South Carolina Code 50-21-10
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Reporter: Makes a record of court proceedings and prepares a transcript, and also publishes the court's opinions or decisions (in the courts of appeals).
• Restitution: The court-ordered payment of money by the defendant to the victim for damages caused by the criminal action.
• Saltwater gamefish: means a species of saltwater fish designated as a saltwater gamefish in this title. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Seed fork: means a fork manufactured having seven or more straight or slightly curved tines or having a tine greater than eight inches in length. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Shad: means American or white shad (Alosa sapidissima) and hickory or skip-jack shad (Alosa mediocris). See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Shellfish: means oysters, clams, mussels, scallops, and all nonmotile molluscan fish having shells. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Shoreline: means the line of mean high water along that portion of a land mass which is in direct contact with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Take: means to harass intentionally, hunt, capture, gather, harvest, remove, catch, wound, or kill or attempt to harass, hunt, capture, gather, harvest, remove, catch, wound, or kill. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Territorial sea: means that portion of the Atlantic Ocean under the jurisdiction of the State of South Carolina. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Total length: means the length of a fish laid flat and measured from the closed mouth (snout) to the tip of the tail fin when pinched together. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Trap: is a n enclosed device used for taking fish, constructed to facilitate entry but prohibit or restrict exit of fish and is also called "pot". See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Trawl: means a net, other than a haul seine, towed behind a boat. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Trawling: means fishing with a trawl or having part of a trawl door in the water. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Trotline: means a single line or wire having numerous hooks or baits and is also called long line. See South Carolina Code 50-5-15
• Use: means operate, navigate, or employ. See South Carolina Code 50-21-10
• Verdict: The decision of a petit jury or a judge.
• Vessel: means every description of watercraft, other than a seaplane regulated by the federal government, used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on water. See South Carolina Code 50-21-10
• Watercraft: means anything used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on the water but does not include: a seaplane regulated by the federal government, water skis, aquaplanes, surfboards, windsurfers, tubes, rafts, and similar devices or anything that does not meet construction or operational requirements of the state or federal government for watercraft. See South Carolina Code 50-21-10