State v. Hamilton, No. 18759

• Court: United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina
• Writing for the Court: BRAILSFORD; MOSS, C.J., LEWIS and BUSSEY, JJ., and LIONEL K. LEGGE
• Citation: 159 S.E.2d 607,251 S.C. 1
• Parties: The STATE, Respondent, v. Leonard C. HAMILTON, Appellant.
• Docket Number: No. 18759
• Decision Date: 14 February 1968

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159 S.E.2d 607 251 S.C. 1 The STATE, Respondent,
v.
Leonard C. HAMILTON, Appellant. No. 18759. Supreme Court of South Carolina. Feb. 14, 1968.

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[251 S.C. 2] Thomas W. Whiteside, Bobby M. Pruitt, Franklin M. Mann, Spartanburg, for appellant.

Sol. John H. Nolen, Asst.Sol. Claude A. Taylor, Jr., Spartanburg, for respondent.

[251 S.C. 3] BRAILSFORD, Justice.

This is an appeal by Leonard C. Hamilton from his conviction of the murder of a Spartanburg storekeeper and his sentence to death by electrocution. Appellant was arrested without a warrant about five hours after discovery of the homicide. A billfold, a social security card and certain pictures belonging to the victim were found in his possession. These exhibits were admitted in evidence at the trial. The principal ground of appeal is that they should have been excluded as the fruits of an illegal search and seizure in violation of the appellant's rights under the state and federal constitutions.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and Article I, Section 16, of the Constitution of South Carolina, in identical language, proscribe unreasonable searches and seizures. Under our long-settled rule that exhibits which are pertinent to an issue on trial may be received in evidence regardless of the means by which they were obtained, no state constitutional problem is involved. State v. Atkinson, 40 S.C. 363, 18 S.E. 1021; State v. Addy, 210 S.C. 353, 42 S.E.2d 585. It was once axiomatic that the Bill of Rights, the first eight amendments [251 S.C. 4] to the Constitution of the United States, imposed limitations upon the federal government only and were not applicable to the states. However, in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, the Supreme Court of the United States held that by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States the Fourth Amendment has been made applicable to the states, and with it the comparatively recent federal doctrine forbidding the admission of evidence obtained by an unreasonable search

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and seizure. For the history of the development of this exclusionary doctrine and a discussion of the impact of Mapp, see 8 Wigmore, Evidence Sec. 2183 (McNaughton Rev.1961) and Sec. 2183a, (Supp.1964).

[1, 2] When the defendant was arrested by police officers of the City of Spartanburg, he was taken to police headquarters and required to empty his pockets. The items which have been enumerated were thus discovered and seized by the officers. The applicable federal doctrine sanctions a warrantless search and seizure incident to a lawful arrest. Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327. The point that the exhibits were the fruits of an unlawful search and seizure is bottomed upon the claim that the appellant's arrest without a warrant was illegal. The following quotation from Beck v. State of Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 85 S.Ct. 223, 13 L.Ed.2d 142, is applicable and states the test which must be applied in resolving this issue:

"The constitutional validity of the search in this case, then, must depend upon the constitutional validity of the petitioner's arrest. Whether that arrest was constitutionally valid depends in turn upon whether, at the moment the arrest was made, the officers had probable cause to make it--whether at that moment the facts and circumstances within their knowledge and of which they had reasonably...