State v. Barrs, 19318
| Decision Date | 11 November 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 19318,19318 |
| Citation | 184 S.E.2d 708,257 S.C. 193 |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. Robert BARRS and George K. Timmons, Appellants. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Edward K. Pritchard, Jr., of Pritchard, Myers, Morrison & Bloom, Charleston, and Reese I. Joye, Jr., of Waldman & Joye, Charleston Heights, for appellants.
Sol Robert B. Wallace, Charleston, for respondent.
Robert Barrs, George Timmons and Charles James were arrested at a roadblock in a rural section of Charleston County on March 16, 1969, and charged with the theft of copper wire from a nearby toll line of Southern Bell Telephone Company. Barrs and Timmons were put to their trial in the County Court for Charleston County, convicted and sentenced to prison terms. They appeal on numerous exceptions which they argue under six questions. We consider all of them, but not in the order in which they are briefed.
A substantial part of the brief is devoted to the claim that the arrest of the trio was illegal; hence, the incident search of their persons and the removal of a pair of wire cutters from Timmons' hip pocket violated their constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. This requires a statement of the circumstances which led to the arrest.
For several days prior to March 16, 1969, and on that day, Southern Bell's electronic warning system linked to its unused Charleston-Savannah toll line registered a series of alarms. Investigations revealed that large quantities of wire had been cut and removed from the line at a number of points near Hollywood.
On Sunday morning, March 16, a lineman engaged in repairing the alarm system saw a station wagon stop on a dirt road about one hundred yards from his position. Three men, one of whom was heavily bearded, emerged from the vehicle, entered the woods and began shooting firearms. These three men were the only persons seen by the lineman in this sparsely settled vicinity that morning.
At about 2:00 on that afternoon a strategy meeting was held by telephone employees and police officers, after which a number of these persons converged on the area. At about 3:00 a telephone security agent, while traveling on a dirt road (referred to as the Dixie Plantation Road) parallel to the toll line and less than one hundred yards from it, saw two men run across the road, followed closely by a third. He observed that they were young white men, dressed in work clothes, and one of them had a full beard. These men ran through the woods and on into a swampy area. On following a trial toward the line from whence the men had come, the agent found a 1957 Chevrolet station wagon parked under the line. An aluminum extension ladder was seen at the base of a pole. The spans of copper wire had been removed from nearby poles. Coils of identical wire were found in the station wagon and others on the ground near it. The agent made a report by radio of what he had observed. A search of the area for the three men was commenced by police officers and security agents. Bloodhounds were sent for and roadblocks were set up, including one on the Dixie Plantantion Road opposite the point at which the station wagon was found. It is clearly inferable from the record that the officers conducting the manhunt, including those manning the roadblock, were advised of the description of the three suspects. Of about ten cars which passed prior to the arrest of appellants, only one was stopped for investigation.
Sometime after the roadblock was set up, the same telephone lineman, who had observed the station wagon and three men that morning, came to the scene in response to a call. He related the morning incident to the officers and identified the station wagon as being the same vehicle he had seen earlier.
At about 5:30 P.M., a 1939 Ford with an elderly driver and three young white men as passengers approached the roadblock. As it did so, the security agent exclaimed, 'There's the man with the beard.' The car was stopped and its occupants ordered out. A number of officers were present and others from nearby came up almost immediately. Sgt. Grassie of the Charleston County Police was one of the latter. When he arrived, the suspects, who all had prior records and were known to him and to other officers present, were standing in the road surrounded by police officers. His appraisal of the situation was that they were already in custody. He determined to take them to headquarters in a police cruiser driven by Detective Botchie. Preparatory to doing so, he told the men that they were under arrest for larceny of wire and for illegal weapons (two pistols had been found hidden under the seats of the old Ford), and Detective Botchie searched them for weapons. He removed a pair of wire cutting pliers from Timmons' hip pocket, and these were admitted into evidence at the trial over the search and seizure objection.
Whether the arrest and incident search were...
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