S.C. Code § 54-9-50
When any prosecution shall be commenced against any person under the provisions of this chapter providing for the punishment of harboring seamen who have deserted and it shall appear to the magistrate before whom the prosecution was commenced that the testimony of any master of a vessel or other transient person will be important on such trial, such magistrate may, after five days' notice to the party accused, summon such witness before some judge of the court of general sessions or the recorder of the city court of Charleston to appear and give evidence in the matter. Thereafter such witness shall be examined, with the right to the party accused to examine or cross-examine such witness as in trials in open court, and the judge or recorder shall certify and seal up such evidence, to be used on the trial of the cause in the same manner as if it had been given orally on such trial. But such testimony shall in no case be used unless it shall appear, by the affidavit of the magistrate before whom prosecution shall have been commenced, that such witness is not at the time of such trial within the jurisdiction of the State.
S.C. Code § 54-9-50