State v. Daniels
| Docket Number | 5986,Appellate Case 2018-001630 |
| Decision Date | 24 May 2023 |
| Parties | The State, Respondent, v. James Elbert Daniels, Jr., Appellant. |
| Court | South Carolina Court of Appeals |
Heard June 15, 2021
Appeal From Horry County Robert E. Hood, Circuit Court Judge
Deputy Chief Appellate Defender Wanda H. Carter, of Columbia, for Appellant.
Attorney General Alan McCrory Wilson, Deputy Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka, Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Melody Jane Brown, Senior Assistant Attorney General J Anthony Mabry, and Assistant Attorney General Mark Reynolds Farthing, all of Columbia; and Solicitor Jimmy A. Richardson II, of Conway, for Respondent.
In January 2015, two masked men robbed three Horry County convenience stores; the men shot and killed the clerk at one store and an employee at another. James Elbert Daniels, Jr. served as the scout before his masked accomplices entered the stores. Daniels now appeals his convictions for murder and armed robbery, arguing law enforcement elicited his incriminating statements in violation of his constitutional rights. As evidence supports the circuit court's findings that Daniels voluntarily accompanied officers to a police substation and his initial thirty-one minute interview was not custodial, we affirm the convictions.
On January 2, 2015, Daniels entered the Sunhouse convenience store at the intersection of Highway 905 and Red Bluff Road in Longs (Sunhouse #1) and purchased a bottle of lemonade. Minutes after Daniels exited the store, Jerome "J.J." Jenkins, Jr. and McKinley Daniels (Brother) entered. Both were masked and armed with handguns. The two men first encountered and shot at Sunhouse employee Jimmy McZeke, but both missed. McZeke ran to the back of the store and locked himself in a bathroom. Jenkins followed and shot at him through the bathroom door, shattering some glass bottles that cut McZeke's head.
While Jenkins chased McZeke, Brother remained at the front of the store. Brother pointed his pistol at the store clerk, 40-year-old Bala Paruchuri, and grabbed money from the cash register. As Jenkins and Brother were leaving the store, one of the men shot and killed Paruchuri.[1] The Sunhouse #1's video surveillance cameras captured footage of the robbery and the murder.
On January 25, 2015, the trio robbed two other convenience stores in the area. Again, Daniels served as the scout; Jenkins and Brother then entered and robbed the stores. Barbara McDowell was working at the Scotchman on Lake Arrowhead Road in Myrtle Beach on an unusually quiet night when, through the store window, she saw "two guys scrunched down" outside. She watched as the two men, whom she was unable to identify because they were "totally covered," entered the Scotchman through the front door. McDowell testified, "One of the guys went straight behind the counter, and the other guy came straight towards me." The man who approached McDowell had a gun, so she emptied the two cash registers and gave him approximately fifty dollars in cash before both men fled on foot. As soon as the men left the store, McDowell pushed the panic button. Because the Scotchman is on a cul-de-sac, McDowell watched for a car to drive back down the road but never saw one. Law enforcement responded and viewed the store's video surveillance footage in an effort to identify the men, while bloodhounds lost their trail at the edge of the store parking lot.
Within hours of the Scotchman robbery, two men robbed the Sunhouse at Cultra Road and Oak Street in Conway (Sunhouse #2) and killed thirty-year-old employee Trisha Stull. Officers responded and watched the surveillance video, which showed two masked men enter and go behind the counter. According to Lieutenant Peter Cestare of the Horry County Police Department (HCPD), shots were fired in the store and some cash and a purse were taken. While watching the videos from the Scotchman and Sunhouse #2, Lt. Cestare noticed a clothing pattern of "red pants and gray sweatshirt," which led him to believe the same men robbed both stores. Lt. Cestare also viewed the surveillance from the Sunhouse #1 crime scene and believed he had "seen that same clothing attire in that store, not during the commission of the robbery, but earlier on in that store."
While watching the video from the Sunhouse #1, Lt. Cestare saw "a vehicle of interest" and "a couple of subjects of interest." He testified that approximately twenty-two minutes prior to the robbery, "a subject was in that store, oddly enough, wearing red pants and a . . . dark color gray . . . hooded sweatshirt," similar to the clothing in the footage from the Sunhouse #2 and Scotchman. Lt. Cestare also saw a car, which he believed to be a silver Chevy Malibu, arrive at both the Sunhouse #1 and Sunhouse #2 prior to the robberies.
Tyler Jennings Luther, a South Carolina Highway Patrol accident reconstructionist and member of the Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team (MAIT team), viewed the videos from the Sunhouse #1 and Sunhouse #2 and advised the HCPD that the vehicle in both videos was a 2008 to 2012 Chevrolet Malibu.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) generated a list of Malibu owners in the area and connected the same firearm to all three casings recovered from the Sunhouse #1. SLED further determined the same firearm was used to fire the two casings recovered from the Sunhouse #2. SLED ultimately concluded all five casings were ejected from the same weapon. Although there was no gun to use for comparison, a SLED firearms specialist opined the cartridges were most likely fired by a Hi-Point weapon.
After developing Daniels as a suspect and learning his girlfriend, LaShania Chestnut, drove a silver Malibu, officers went to Chestnut's home to interview Daniels. Upon arrival, officers saw the Malibu; thus, they obtained a search warrant and seized the vehicle.[2] Daniels and Chestnut agreed to accompany officers to the west precinct in Green Sea for interviews, and the two rode in separate unmarked cars to the substation. The two were not handcuffed during the ride, and no officer advised Daniels of his Miranda[3] rights prior to his initial interview. Instead, HCPD Senior Detective Greg Lent waited until "it became apparent . . . that there was most likely further information that [Daniels] was going to provide that . . . would cause [an officer] to place him under arrest." Approximately thirty minutes into the interview, Detective Lent advised Daniels of his Miranda rights; Daniels subsequently identified Brother[4] and Jenkins[5] as the men who robbed all three stores.[6] Following Daniels's arrest, Detective Lent questioned him again the following day at the Horry County Detention Center.
The Horry County grand jury indicted Daniels on two counts of armed robbery and murder. At Daniels's trial, the jury found Daniels guilty as indicted, and the circuit court sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
"In criminal cases, appellate courts are bound by fact finding in response to preliminary motions where there has been conflicting testimony or where the findings are supported by the evidence and not clearly wrong or controlled by an error of law." State v. Asbury, 328 S.C. 187, 193, 493 S.E.2d 349, 352 (1997). "Appellate review of whether a person is in custody is confined to a determination of whether the ruling by the trial judge is supported by the record." State v. Evans, 354 S.C. 579, 583, 582 S.E.2d 407, 409 (2003). The appellate court will reverse a trial court's ruling on the voluntariness of a confession only when the ruling is "so erroneous as to constitute an abuse of discretion." State v. Myers, 359 S.C. 40, 47, 596 S.E.2d 488, 491 (2004).
Daniels argues the circuit court erred in admitting into evidence his interviews with law enforcement because the interrogating officers used an unconstitutional "question-first" tactic to elicit incriminating statements in his initial interview, rendering any subsequent waiver of his Miranda rights involuntary. We disagree.
Pretrial defense counsel moved to exclude Daniels's police interviews, and the circuit court held an in camera hearing. Detective Lent testified Daniels was identified by another police officer as a person "inside the store prior to one of the armed robberies." The surveillance videos from the crime scenes enabled officers to identify the car Daniels drove; on the night of the first robbery and murder, the Malibu passed by the Sunhouse #1 several times and then left the scene "at a decent rate of speed and running through a red light." Once officers identified the Malibu, Detective Lent and several other detectives went to Chestnut's home in unmarked cars.
Upon their arrival around 8:00 p.m. on February 5, 2015, the officers saw a car in Chestnut's yard that "looked to be the same vehicle" seen in the videos. Because Daniels was at work, officers initially spoke to Chestnut, who told them that although she owned the vehicle, Daniels "had control and would use her car." When Chestnut's mother called Daniels at work and told him police officers were there questioning his pregnant girlfriend, Daniels left his work site and came to Chestnut's house. By the time Daniels arrived, Chestnut was seated in a police car. Detective Lent then asked if the couple would come to the police precinct in Green Sea to speak with investigators. Detective Lent testified Daniels and Chestnut were not under arrest, were not in custody, and voluntarily agreed to accompany officers to the substation. Officers drove the two, uncuffed, in separate unmarked cars. At the conclusion of his direct examination testimony, Detective Lent stated:
If [Daniels]...
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