State v. Goodson, 16884

• Citation: 82 S.E.2d 804,225 S.C. 418
• Decision Date: 28 June 1954
• Docket Number: No. 16884,16884
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina
• Parties: STATE v. GOODSON.

Page 804

82 S.E.2d 804

225 S.C. 418

STATE v. GOODSON.

No. 16884.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

June 28, 1954.

Blease Ellison, Lexington, Yarborough & McGowan, Florence, for appellant.

Hubert E. Long, Sol., Leesville, for respondent.

STUKES, Justice.

The appellant was convicted of burglary and larceny and his appeal is concerned solely with the sufficiency of the evidence for submission to the jury; error is imputed to the trial judge for denial of motions for directed verdict of not guilty and for judgment non obstante veredicto. Consideration of the appeal therefore requires some review of the evidence.

A resident of Batesburg had in a closet in his home a small safe (a fraction over twenty inches in width and depth and thirty inches in height, outside measurements) in which were $2,800 in currency, insurance policies and other papers. He and his wife left their home at about seven P.M. on October 5, 1951, and were away only about an hour. Upon their return they found that it had been broken into and the safe removed. They called the town police who summoned State law enforcement officers, and they called in the sheriff next day. The State and county officers thereafter cooperated in the investigation.

Motor vehicle tracks at the front of the house indicated that the safe was loaded on a vehicle there. A locally owned pickup truck, stolen from another apparently for the purpose, was found next day abandoned about fifteen miles southwest from Batesburg. A few days later the safe was found, broken open and empty, at a remote location six miles east of Blaney, in Kershaw County, which is on U.S. Highway No. 1, a main route between Batesburg and Hartsville, the important significance of which will be later seen. The safe was back of a Negro church about three miles off that highway and three-fourths of a mile from an alternate route known as the Percival or Fort Jackson road which is about the same distance and carries little traffic. None of the contents of the safe was found. It was put in evidence and the sheriff and his deputies brought it into the court room at the time of trial. Its weight was variously estimated by several witnesses at from 150 to 500 pounds.

The stolen safe was painted green and the officers found in the trunk of appellant's Ford automobile, and on the rear bumper, particles of similar paint which they collected from the trunk and sent to the laboratory of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington along with separate sample of paint scraped from the safe. Meanwhile, they impounded the automobile. An agent of F. B. I., assigned to its Washington laboratory and long trained and experienced in such, testified that he examined the paint scrapings and chips under a microscope, determined the number, composition and color, of the three coats or layers of the paint, which were a primer, a wrinkle-finish enamel and a lacquer; and the particles of paint which were obtained from the trunk of appellant's automobile and those from the safe were the same. Micro-chemical tests also showed that the pigments in the three layers of paint were the same. The samples of paint were finally compared by the use of a spectograph which is used for determining the composition of paint which is burned and the light given off is characteristic of the elements present and is indistinguishable to the naked eye. The spectographic examination of the light given off by the burning samples in this case showed that the paint taken from the trunk of appellant's automobile and that taken from the safe were of the same composition, contained the same elements. In summary, the testimony of this expert was that the paint was determined, by the described scientific tests, to be the same. Appellant offered no explanation of the presence of the paint particles in and about the trunk of his car except that he had purchased it secondhand about nine months before; he admitted that he was in the sole possession of it between the time of the crime and the examination and seizure of it by the officers about a week afterward. The automobile, which remained in storage from the time of seizure until the trial, was in evidence and was examined by the jury. Particles of paint, similar to that on the safe, were then still on the bumper of the car.

Appellant testified and also by other evidence attempted to establish an alibi. Formerly a tavern-keeper in Hartsville, he had moved to Batesburg only about nine months before and, according to his own testimony, was practically without an occupation. He said that he was trying to establish himself as a used automobile dealer but had no place of business, not even space about his home in which he could store cars, and he parked on the street in front of it. He had handled five or six cars and had two on hand at this time. The car in which the paint particles were found was purchased by him several months before from a finance company and, he said, had formerly been badly abused. His contention was that on the evening of the crime he left in this car from his home in Batesburg at about 5:30 and went to his former home in Hartsville where he took his mother to see a high school football game in which his seventeen-year-old son by a former marriage played; the boy lived with his grandmother in Hartsville. The latter testified in support of his father's claimed alibi but their evidence conflicted. The boy said, quoting from his testimony, 'I saw him (appellant) at my house, and then at the ball game, and back at the house;' he repeated that he saw appellant before the game. It commenced at eight o'clock and appellant testified that he reached there aboaut eight, maybe five minutes before, got his mother at her home, which was on the way, and took her with him to the game. He was asked on cross-examination when he first saw his son and his reply was, 'Well, I saw him right after I got to the game, and I saw him at the half, and after the game.'

Appellant's mother did not testify. She was at Myrtle Beach at the time of the trial and the certificate of a doctor was presented which recited that he had treated her, presumably on the day of the trial or the day before, for hypertension and stated complications; but he did not certify that she was unable to attend court, and no deposition or affidavit of what she would testify to, if present, was offered. Circuit Court Rule 27. The only witness who supported appellant's contention of alibi, except his young son and except his wife who said that he was not at their home, was a resident of Hartsville who testified that he saw appellant at the game at half-time, which inferably was after nine o'clock. The highway distance between Batesburg and Hartsville on the mileage table of the current State Highway Department official map is 102 miles; a defendant's witness said that it is 103 miles. Appellant testified that he ordinarily drove at 60 miles per hour. Manifestly, there was ample time for him to have committed the crime, deposited the safe where it was found and thereafter reached Hartsville by half-time of the football game which commenced at eight o'clock. It is uncontroverted that he did not return to Batesburg until about noon of the next day.

When questioned by the officers before his arrest appellant refused to give them any details of his whereabouts on the night of the crime but told them instead, in effect, that he would 'talk in court'; and he persisted in this attitude although they offered to interview anyone whom he would say he was with at the time of the crime.

The appeal has been argued as if the only evidence which pointed to the guilt of appellant was the identical similarity of the paint found in the trunk of his automaobile and that subsequently taken from the safe, together with the fact that the measurements of the latter made it a close fit in the trunk whereby, in removing it, paint was accidentally scraped off it and in sliding it over the bumper more of the safe's paint was left on the latter. However, the appellant's admitted absence from his home on the night of the crime and the manifest defects in his attempted proof of alibi are further circumstances which the jury might reasonably have considered in reaching their conclusion of guilt. Having adduced the alleged facts of his contended alibi, they were for the consideration of the jury.

Upon appeal from refusal of motions to direct the verdict was set it aside the evidence must be considered in the most favorable light for conviction. State v. Smith, 220 S.C. 224, 67 S.E.2d 82. The following pertinent quotation is from State v. Riley, 219 S.C. 112, 64 S.E.2d 127, 128: 'When considering a motion for a directed verdict in favor of a defendant, it is not the function of the Court to pass upon the weight of the evidence, but to determine its sufficiency to support the verdict. Where there is any evidence, however slight, on which the jury may justifiably find the existence or non-existence of material facts in issue, or if the evidence is of such character that different conclusions as to such facts reasonably may be drawn therefrom, the issue should be submitted to the jury. State v. Prince, 165 S.C. 115, 162 S.E. 777; State v. Gellis, 158 S.C. 471, 155 S.E. 849; State v. Rush, 129 S.C. 43, 123 S.E. 765. The general rule is that, if there be any evidence tending to prove the fact in issue or which reasonably conduces to its conclusion as a fairly logical and legitimate deduction and not merely such as raises a suspicion or conjecture in regard to it, the case should be submitted to the jury. State v. Roddey, 126 S.C. 499, 120 S.E. 359; State v. Villepigue, 127 S.C. 392, 121 S.E. 258; State v. Walker, 138 S.C. 293, 136 S.E. 215.'

It is mistakenly contended by appellant that the jury could have only arrived at their verdict by improperly mounting a presumption upon a presumption, having reference to the identity of the paint in the automobile and...