State v. Bailey
| Decision Date | 03 November 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 21999,21999 |
| Citation | 308 S.E.2d 795,279 S.C. 437 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. Wayne BAILEY and Bobby Joe Lawhorn, Appellants. |
O.W. Bannister, Jr., of Hill, Wyatt & Bannister, Greenville, for appellants.
Atty. Gen. T. Travis Medlock, Retired Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod, Asst. Atty. Gen. Harold M. Coombs, Jr., and Staff Atty. Carlisle Roberts, Jr., Columbia, and Sol. William B. Traxler, Jr., Greenville, for respondent.
Appellants Wayne Bailey and Bobby Joe Lawhorn were jointly tried and convicted of robbery, impersonating an officer, and aggravated assault and battery. Appellant Bailey was additionally convicted for failure to stop in response to the signal from a law enforcement vehicle. Both defendants have appealed charging error in the admission into evidence at trial of certain testimony by a reply witness for the State.
This case arose out of the alleged robbery of one Billy Collins by the appellants. Collins testified that while he was stopped on a highway in a rural section of Pickens County because of car trouble, appellants stopped and at first attempted to help him. Later, according to Collins, appellants claimed to be undercover agents and seized his pistol that he had on his person. They then beat and robbed him, put him out in the early morning hours, and drove away in his vehicle.
When appellants were apprehended by an officer, they were operating the Collins vehicle. Appellant Bailey, in explanation of their possession of the motor vehicle, testified that Collins and appellant Lawhorn had negotiated a sale of drugs, with the vehicle and the pistol being kept by Lawhorn as security for the delivery of a certain amount of marijuana.
The State claimed that appellant Bailey's father and brother (Rex) attempted to procure perjured testimony relating to ownership of the Collins vehicle, so as to explain its possession by appellants. Appellant Bailey testified and was asked on cross-examination several questions by the Solicitor concerning efforts of his father and brother to procure perjured testimony. Bailey denied any knowledge of any such plot. Rex Bailey, brother of appellant Bailey, also testified, but he was asked only one indirect question as to whether he knew of any talk about the victim Collins giving his pick-up truck (the vehicle here involved) to anyone.
After the close of the testimony for the defense, the State presented the testimony of one Earl Smith as a "reply" witness. This witness testified that on the previous Saturday appellant Bailey's father and brother came to his (Smith's) house. Over appellant's objections, that the testimony would be hearsay and collateral, the witness was allowed to testify that the father and brother of appellant Bailey told him that the victim Collins had sold the vehicle in question to appellant Bailey; and that they wanted to talk with one Langford, Smith's stepfather, about the alleged sale because the appellant Bailey would go to jail if they did not get the matter "straightened out." They were allegedly seeking to procure testimony that such...
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State v. Quattlebaum
...less probable the matter in controversy. Rule 401, SCRE; State v. Alexander, 303 S.C. 377, 401 S.E.2d 146 (1991). In State v. Bailey, 279 S.C. 437, 308 S.E.2d 795 (1983), we held it was error for the lower court to allow evidence the appellant's father and brother had attempted to procure p......
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In re Campbell
...matter because it could not have been presented during the State's case-in-chief to prove Campbell was an SVP. See State v. Bailey , 279 S.C. 437, 439–40, 308 S.E.2d 795, 797 (1983) (citations omitted) (holding evidence that the defendant's father and brother attempted to procure perjured t......
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State v. Caldwell
...of the fact that her previous alibi attempt had been called into question by Wallace's testimony. Caldwell proffers State v. Bailey, 279 S.C. 437, 308 S.E.2d 795 (1983) for the proposition that the State is prohibited from suggesting that a defendant attempted to persuade a witness to offer......
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State v. Farrow
...the improper admission of this evidence may not serve as the basis for reversal unless found to be prejudicial. State v. Bailey, 279 S.C. 437, 308 S.E.2d 795 (1983). Moreover, ordinarily, the admission of reply testimony is within the sound discretion of the trial court. Id. We are unable t......