State v. Daniels
| Decision Date | 12 May 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 18920,18920 |
| Citation | 167 S.E.2d 621,252 S.C. 591 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. Billy Gene DANIELS, Appellant. |
Paul J. Foster, Jr., Kenneth C. Porter, Greenville, for appellant.
Solicitor B. O. Thomason, Jr., Greenville, for respondent.
Albert B. Scott, an employee in charge of Herndon's Esso filling station near the City of Greenville, was held up and at gun point robbed by two men about 2 0'clock A.M. on April 14, 1967. After money was taken Scott was tied, hands and feet, with strips of cloth material. James Durham and Billy Gene Daniels were indicted and charged with the offense. When the case was tried James Durham was dead; Billy Gene Daniels was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced. From this conviction he has appealed.
No contention is made that the evidence submitted to the jury is insufficient to warrant a conviction. All appellate issues relate to procedural matters and admissibility of evidence during the trial of the case.
Perhaps the question argued most seriously by counsel is as follows: Did the court err in admitting into evidence a strip of cloth identified in transcript as Q--5, when said evidence was obtained as a result of a warrantless search and seizure? Only so much of the evidence as is necessary to rule upon this question will be recited.
When county officers Harvey and Green investigated the armed robbery shortly after two o'clock in the morning they found that Scott had been tied with strips of cloth described as 'a piece of shirt, light colored cloth, and sort of like an undershirt, similar to it;' it was also described as '(p)ieces of cloth; part looked like off of a towel material, and the other part was shirt material, both white.' They kept the pieces of cloth for use as evidence.
At approximately four o'clock of the same morning two officers of the Greenville City Police Department stopped a Mustang automobile which failed to obey a red traffic light and which had no headlights burning. The driver was identified as James Durham and the only passenger was identified as Billy Gene Daniels. Durham was arrested and taken to the city police headquarters for booking on the two traffic violations. Since Daniels did not have a driver's license and accordingly could not drive the automobile, it was parked on a city street with the officers retaining the keys. Daniels was not arrested and was left free to go as he might choose.
By the time Durham arrived at city police headquarters the desk sergeant had learned that two armed robberies had occurred curred earlier in the area, and upon becoming suspicious of Durham and Daniels, had Daniels apprehended and brought in. He was found near a night club within a few blocks of where Durham had been arrested. When Durham was arrested and booked he had a cloth around his neck. Later officers sought this but it disappeared after he was placed in a cell. The desk sergeant had the arresting officers bring the Mustang to city police headquarters.
Just before the Mustang arrived Officers Harvey and Green came to the city police headquarters. They were investigating the filling station robbery. They were shown the Mustang and looked with a flashlight through the window of the car from the outside and saw 'a side of a shirt * * * laying in the back of the back seat in the floorboard with a pair of scissors on the seat.' After observing the cloth and scissors from the outside Lt. Harvey opened the car door and removed and examined the articles. He did not search the car nor look in the glove compartment or trunk. The cloth found in the car, together with the cloth used to tie up the robbery victim was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory and the testimony of a fiber expert revealed that the cloth used to tie up the victim was cut from the cloth found in the back of the Mustang. This evidence was very important, if not absolutely necessary, to factually make a jury issue of guilt.
Daniels' defense was alibi; in addition he denied being in the Mustang at the time Durham was arrested for traffic violations.
The cloth material procured as described above from the Mustang was offered in evidence and admitted over timely objections of counsel for Daniels. It was the position of counsel that there was involved a search and seizure which was not incident to the arrest, and that the officers had no right to search the vehicle without a search warrant, which admittedly was not obtained. It was the position of the State that no search was involved and that the officers were justified in seizing the cloth material (after the same was seen and recognized as probably being relevant evidence) without the necessity of a search. In oral argument counsel for the State has admitted that the seizure was not incident to the arrest, and bottoms justification for obtaining the cloth on the proposition that it was procured without the necessity of a search.
Ownership of the Mustang is not completely settled in the record. Durham at the time of the arrest is quoted as saying it belonged to his aunt. Daniels while on the stand testified that he formerly owned the same in the name of Mamie Cooley, a girl friend, but that she had turned it back to the finance company. In attempting to exclude the evidence found, no claim was made that Daniels owned any interest in the vehicle. He denied being in the car at the time of the arrest, but admitted that he and Durham lived in the same house.
Under Daniels' version it can only be said that he was a former owner of the car. By the State's version it can only be said that he rode in it recently. Inasmuch as the trial judge treated the objection to the evidence as though Daniels were an aggrieved person under the Fourth Amendment, we shall assume (without so deciding) that he had standing to object. Under each version of the testimony it can logically be argued that neither previous owners nor recent passengers of motor vehicles have standing to raise Fourth Amendment issues. It is difficult to envision an invasion of '(t)he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures * * *' (U.S.Const. Amend. IV) merely because one formerly owned a car or recently rode as a passenger in it. The evidence is not susceptible of the inference that Daniels had any interest in the car as owner, bailee or otherwise.
We are well aware of the fact that he was not required to claim ownership in order to claim Fourth Amendment rights. Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960). If there was an illegal search and seizure the fruits thereof would of course be inadmissible in State proceedings under the rule laid down in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961).
We agree with counsel for the State that the shirt and scissors were not procured as a result of a search or any unlawful conduct on the part of police officers. In State v. Thomas, 248 S.C. 573, 151 S.E.2d 855, 861 (1966), we held, 'It is important to note that the provisions of the State and Federal Constitutions protect against
Here we have an automobile left of necessity on the public streets of the City of Greenville. At that place police officers and other citizens were free to observe the car and look through the windows and see the evidence which is the subject of objection. No improper conduct should be attributed to the city officers who took the car in off the street, and this is especially true after Durham became suspected of robbery, and might be legally detained incident thereto longer than was contemplated when only a traffic violation was involved.
After the car was brought to city headquarters, the officers and any other citizen permitted on the premises were at liberty to observe the car and look through the windows,...
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McHam v. State
...these arguments were articulated by the passenger's counsel, and McHam's counsel joined in the motion. 2.Cf. State v. Daniels, 252 S.C. 591, 596–97, 167 S.E.2d 621, 623–24 (1969) (finding an officer investigating a robbery who looked in a vehicle's window and saw materials that appeared to ......
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State v. Austin
...100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980), Combs v. United States, 408 U.S. 224, 92 S.Ct. 2284, 33 L.Ed.2d 308 (1972), State v. Daniels, 252 S.C. 591, 167 S.E.2d 621 (1969). Whether the State is entitled to prevail on this argument depends on a factual determination. V OUR DECISION Issue 1 The ......
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State v. Missouri
...It is not necessary for a defendant to be an owner of a property in order to claim Fourth Amendment rights. State v. Daniels, 252 S.C. 591, 167 S.E.2d 621 (1969). However, a defendant seeking to suppress evidence on Fourth Amendment grounds bears the burden of proving he had a reasonable ex......
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...by shining his flashlight into a suspects car due to legitimate concerns about the suspects safety. See also State v. Daniels, 252 S.C. 591, 596, 167 S.E.2d 621, 624 (1969) (finding the use of a flashlight in a lawful search of a suspects car is of no real consequence when the evidence foun......