NOTE: Dated, use instead South Carolina Requests to Charge – Criminal, 2nd Edition
South Carolina Criminal Jury Charges

SC Chapter 8 –  defenses.  Citizen – arrest

A citizen may arrest a person under certain circumstances and use whatever means are necessary to make the arrest. [charge only the applicable circumstances below.]

[(1) a citizen may arrest another person if the citizen saw a felony or a larceny committed by the person arrested or had certain information that a felony had been committed by that person.]

[(2) a citizen may arrest another person in the nighttime if there is certain information that the person arrested either: committed a felony; entered a dwelling without express or implied permission; broke into, or is breaking into, an outhouse with the intent to steal; had stolen property in his (her) possession; or fled when hailed if there are circumstances which raise a suspicion that the person had the intent to steal or commit a felony.

The defendant must have used reasonable means, based on the darkness and the probability of escape, to effect the arrest.]

Whether the force used was reasonable depends on the facts of the case and is a question for you to decide.  You must look at the circumstances that appeared to the person making the arrest at the time the deadly force was used and decide whether an ordinary and reasonable person, acting with the same knowledge and in the same situation as the defendant, would have believed that the force used was reasonably necessary.