State v. Edwards

• Decision Date: 05 July 1934
• Docket Number: 13881.
• Citation: 175 S.E. 277,173 S.C. 161
• Parties: STATE v. EDWARDS et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

175 S.E. 277

173 S.C. 161

STATE v. EDWARDS et al.

No. 13881.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

July 5, 1934

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Anderson County; G. B Greene, Judge.

Leroy Edwards and another were convicted of statutory arson, and they appeal.

Affirmed.

L. W Harris and K. P. Smith, both of Anderson, for appellants.

Rufus Fant, Jr., Sol., and Harold Major, both of Anderson, for the State.

BLEASE Chief Justice.

The appellants were convicted, in the court of general sessions of Anderson county, of the crime of statutory arson, with a recommendation by the jury to the mercy of the court, and the presiding judge, his honor, Circuit Judge Greene, sentenced each of them to a term of six years at hard labor on the chain gang of Anderson county, or in the state penitentiary.

In the appeal, there are nine exceptions. The last of these relating to the receipt of certain testimony of Sheriff Clamp, as a witness for the state in reply, has not been argued, and under our rules, therefore, will not be considered.

In several of the exceptions, the appellants complain of the rulings of the circuit judge throughout the trial, and on their motion for a new trial after their conviction, as to the introduction of evidence on the part of the state before proper proof was offered, as they allege, going to establish the corpus delicti. Counsel for the appellants contended in the lower court, as they urge here, that no evidence of any character, except such as tended to establish the corpus delicti, could be offered by the state, until there had been presented evidence showing the corpus delicti. The rule does not go to that extent. It does forbid the introduction of evidence as to a confession of guilt on the part of one charged with the crime of arson, until there has been sufficient evidence to go to the jury on the matter of the corpus delicti. State v. Brown, 103 S.C. 437, 88 S.E. 21, L. R. A. 1916D, 1295. There was no evidence adduced in the case of a confession of guilt on the part of either of the appellants, and, accordingly, there was no violation of the rule as to confessions, laid down in the Brown Case.

There was, it is true, evidence of certain statements on the part of both of the appellants, tending to question the truth of the respective alibis they sought to establish and contradictory of their testimony in the trial, but these statements were in no wise confessions of guilt. They were in the nature of admissions against interest, and were properly admissible. State v. Pittman, 137 S.C. 75, 134 S.E. 514. The time of the receipt of this testimony was left very much to the discretion of the trial judge. Perhaps, usually, the more orderly way of presenting evidence on the part of the state, in an arson case, is for the evidence tending to establish the corpus delicti to be first presented. In this case, as it often happens, the statement of a defendant, offered in evidence by the prosecution, may come from a witness whose testimony may also relate to the matter of the corpus delicti. In many instances, it would uselessly consume the time of the court to have a witness to take the stand two or three times for the purpose of testifying as to various relevant matters, when he might testify to all those matters in one examination.

It is contended by the appellants that there was no proof of the corpus delicti, and, for failure as to that, the trial judge, as requested by them, should have directed a verdict of acquittal, and, at least, he should have granted their motion for a new trial. To support the position taken, there is great reliance upon the holdings in the case of State v. Brown, supra.

In the Brown Case, it was ruled, in line with authorities generally recognized, that in an arson case the corpus delicti consists of two elements: The burned building, or structure, and the criminal act of some person in causing the burning. This court held that in the trial of the case there was only proof as to the first element, "a burned barn"; and there was not a single circumstance that the burning was the result of a criminal act. In this case, there was undoubted proof that the building, a barn, was burned.

As usual, the difficulty is as to the proof of the second element, the criminal agency. Clear proof as to the corpus delicti in an arson case is always a difficult matter. The burning usually occurs in the darkness of night, when the incendiary feels assured that there is no human eye who may see his hand apply the brand, and no human ear to hear the fall of his footsteps, as he stealthily approaches and retreats from the place of his criminality. Rarely has it happened that an eyewitness to the crime of arson could be produced. The prosecution in such cases must depend, generally, on circumstantial evidence. That evidence is necessarily often of a negative character; that is, the criminal agency is shown by the absence of circumstances, conditions, and surroundings indicating that the fire resulted from an accidental cause.

In passing upon the issue now being considered, we must keep in mind, of course, that we are not here to determine the sufficiency of the evidence to justify the jury's verdict to the effect that the fire was one of incendiary origin; but we are concerned only with the question as to the sufficiency of that evidence to require the trial judge to submit the issue of criminal agency to the jury. In other words, if there is any evidence tending to establish the corpus delicti, then it was the duty of the trial judge to pass that question on to the jury, and, likewise, we are required to uphold his ruling. Any reasonable inference that might be drawn by the jury from any circumstances established by competent testimony, indicating that the fire was not occasioned by an accidental cause, but resulted from a criminal agency, would, under our law, demand that the jury say whether or not the fire was the act of an incendiary.

With the legal principles adverted to before us, we refer as briefly as possible to the facts. For a week prior to the burning, there had been considerable rain. The last person who had any business about the barn, so far as it is known was the owner, who was there about dark. There had been no fire, lights, or smoking in or about the barn. The fire broke out about midnight. Upon its discovery, the owner, the first person to reach the scene, found the fire burning in each of the two ends of the barn, much more than in the middle part of the building, and the timbers at the ends were already falling in. A calf lot, adjoining the barn, had its door fastened with a wooden "button" on the outside, which, because of the excessive wet weather, had swollen, thereby becoming difficult to be moved, and had to be knocked around to be fastened or unfastened, as the occasion required. While the barn was burning, the calves in the lot burst through the door and ran out, but the button was not broken, and its position gave indication that it had been removed before the calves broke through. There was considerable fodder in the barn in and about both ends, which could be easily reached and fired by a person. Two sets of men's tracks were found, both approaching and going away from the barn. These indicated that two persons had come from the vicinity of a schoolhouse to the barn, across a wet field for a mile, and had gone from the barn across the same field for the same...