State v. Barnes
| Decision Date | 16 August 2017 |
| Docket Number | Opinion No. 5509. |
| Citation | 421 S.C. 47,804 S.E.2d 301 |
| Court | South Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. Trenton Malik BARNES, Appellant. |
Appellate Defender Susan Barber Hackett, of Columbia, for Appellant.
Attorney General Alan McCrory Wilson, Deputy Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka, Assistant Attorney General Susannah Rawl Cole, and Solicitor Daniel Edward Johnson, all of Columbia, for Respondent.
After a joint trial, Trenton Barnes and Lorenzo Young were convicted by a jury of murder, kidnapping, second-degree burglary, and attempted armed robbery. We set forth the relevant facts in State v. Young , Op. No. 5501, ––– S.C. ––––, ––– S.E.2d ––––, 2017 WL 3044752 (S.C. Ct. App. filed July 19, 2017) (Shearhouse Adv. Sh. No. 27 at 96–101). On appeal, Barnes argues the trial court erred in (1) denying his motions for severance; (2) admitting the testimony of two jailhouse informants as statements against interest under Rule 804(b)(3), SCRE ; and (3) allowing the State to improperly impeach the testimony of his mother, Latoya Barnes. We affirm.
Barnes first contends the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion to sever his trial from Young's. Denial of a severance motion is an abuse of discretion if unsupported by the evidence or controlled by an error of law. State v. Spears , 393 S.C. 466, 475, 713 S.E.2d 324, 328 (Ct. App. 2011).
Codefendants in a murder case are not automatically entitled to separate trials. State v. Kelsey , 331 S.C. 50, 73, 502 S.E.2d 63, 75 (1998). They are entitled to a severance "only when there is a serious risk that a joint trial would compromise a specific trial right of a codefendant or prevent the jury from making a reliable judgment about a codefendant's guilt." State v. Dennis , 337 S.C. 275, 282, 523 S.E.2d 173, 176 (1999). See also Hughes v. State , 346 S.C. 554, 559, 552 S.E.2d 315, 317 (2001) ; see also Zafiro v. United States , 506 U.S. 534, 540, 113 S.Ct. 933, 122 L.Ed.2d 317 (1993) (). We will only reverse the denial of a severance motion when it is reasonably probable the defendant would have received a more favorable outcome had he been tried separately. Hughes , 346 S.C. at 559, 552 S.E.2d at 317.
Barnes argues being tried with Young compromised his right to effectively cross-examine Young's girlfriend, Rolanda Coleman. Barnes believes Coleman was a key witness whose credibility was central, as she identified him as the gunman in the gray sweatshirt on the surveillance video, and also testified she had seen him with a gun on another occasion. Barnes claims in a separate trial he would have been able to elicit that Coleman and Young were codefendants in an unrelated pending burglary charge. Barnes believes this would have allowed him to better portray to the jury that Coleman's testimony lacked credibility because she was seeking to protect Young, with whom she shares two children.
The record reveals the trial court only prohibited Barnes from telling the jury Young was charged in the pending burglary case, presumably because to do so would have introduced improper evidence of Young's character and prior bad acts, transgressing Rule 404, SCRE. Nothing stopped Barnes from confronting Coleman about her bias in favor of Young based on their relationship or her willingness to testify in hopes of reducing her exposure to substantial prison time on the burglary charge. In fact, these areas were explored during her testimony. Being tried with Young did not hamper Barnes' right to cross-examine Coleman effectively; consequently, no prejudice accrued to him. Moreover, we do not believe exclusion of this singular point of impeachment prevented the jury from making a reliable judgment about Barnes' guilt. See Dennis , 337 S.C. at 282, 523 S.E.2d at 176. Coleman's testimony was cumulative to other evidence, including Barnes' letter to his mother and his mother's identification of him in the video.
Barnes also claims the joint trial prevented him from cross-examining Young about the statements he made to Alfred D. Wright and Michael Schaefer identifying "Trigg" and "Trap" as his accomplices. Because Young did not take the stand, Barnes maintains he could not confront Young and consequently Bruton v. United States , 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), required Barnes be granted a separate trial.
This is a closer issue. As we noted in Young , the State's decision to try Barnes and Young together was fraught with risk. It also placed the trial court in difficult positions throughout the almost three week trial. Yet, as we concluded in Young's appeal, the trial was fundamentally fair and we can confidently say the jury was not prevented from making a reliable judgment about Barnes' guilt. As more fully explained in Section II, infra , the evidence of Barnes' guilt was overwhelming. The probability Barnes would have fared better in a separate trial is remote. Accordingly, even if the denial of severance compromised Barnes' right to confront Young, the error was harmless. See State v. McDonald , 412 S.C. 133, 142, 771 S.E.2d 840, 844 (2015) .
Barnes next argues the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of Wright and Schaefer under the hearsay exception for statements against penal interest, Rule 804(b)(3), SCRE. We agree.
In criminal cases, an appellate court reviews only errors of law. State v. Baccus , 367 S.C. 41, 48, 625 S.E.2d 216, 220 (2006). The admission of evidence is within the discretion of the trial court, and we may only check that discretion if it is abused. State v. Saltz , 346 S.C. 114, 121, 551 S.E.2d 240, 244 (2001). An abuse of discretion occurs when the decision of the trial court is controlled by an error of law or lacks evidentiary support. State v. Pagan , 369 S.C. 201, 208, 631 S.E.2d 262, 265 (2006).
Over Barnes' objections, Wright testified in part:
Schaefer later took the stand and provided the following:
Williamson v. United States , 512 U.S. 594, 600–01, 114 S.Ct. 2431, 129 L.Ed.2d 476 (1994), is the starting point for considering admissibility of statements against penal interest:
In our view, the most faithful reading of Rule 804(b)(3) is that it does not allow admission of non-self-inculpatory statements, even if they are made within a broader narrative that is generally self-inculpatory. The district court may not just assume for purposes of Rule 804(b)(3) that a statement is self-inculpatory because it is part of a fuller confession, and this is especially true when the statement implicates someone else.
Our supreme court adopted the Williamson approach in State v. Fuller , 337 S.C. 236, 244–45, 523 S.E.2d 168, 172 (1999). We interpret the rule allowing statements against penal interest stringently. Fuller emphasized the "strict requirements" of the rule. Id. at 245, 523 S.E.2d at 172. State v. Holmes reaffirmed Fuller and stressed the rule is to be applied "very narrowly to only those portions of a hearsay statement which are plainly self-inculpatory." 342 S.C. 113, 117, 536 S.E.2d 671, 673 (2000). See generally Weinstein's Federal Evidence 804 -64 (2d ed. 2017) ("[A] statement which shifts a greater share of the blame to another person (self-serving) or which simply adds the name of a partner in crime (neutral) should be excluded even when closely connected to a statement that assigns criminality to the declarant."); McCormick on Evidence 533 (7th ed. 2013) ("The result is that only the specific parts of the narrative that inculpate qualify.").
Rule 804(b)(3), SCRE, requires the trial judge to view the disputed evidence in light of the surrounding circumstances and discern whether each particular remark is plainly self-inculpatory. This entails a searching examination of both content and context. The portions of Wright and Schaefer's testimony that relate Young's mention of "Trigg" and "Trap" as his accomplices were...
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