State v. Jenkins

• Decision Date: 01 July 2015
• Docket Number: No. 27537.,Appellate Case No. 2012–212544.,27537.
• Citation: 412 S.C. 643,773 S.E.2d 906
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: The STATE, Petitioner, v. Daniel J. JENKINS, Respondent.

412 S.C. 643

773 S.E.2d 906

The STATE, Petitioner

v.Daniel J. JENKINS, Respondent.

Appellate Case No. 2012–212544.

No. 27537.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Heard March 3, 2015.

Decided July 1, 2015.

Attorney General, Alan McCrory Wilson, Chief Deputy Attorney General, John W. McIntosh, Senior Assistant, Deputy Attorney General, Salley W. Elliott, Assistant, Attorney General, Mark Reynolds Farthing, all of Columbia; and Solicitor Scarlett Anne Wilson, of Charleston, for petitioner.

Appellate Defender, Kathrine Haggard Hudgins, of Columbia, for respondent.

Opinion

Chief Justice TOAL.

The State appeals the court of appeals' decision reversing the trial court's finding that a search warrant for samples of Daniel Jenkins's (Respondent) DNA was valid, and remanding for an evidentiary hearing regarding whether the State would have inevitably discovered Respondent's DNA during the course of its investigation.¹ State v. Jenkins, 398 S.C. 215, 727 S.E.2d 761 (Ct.App.2012). We reverse, and reinstate Respondent's conviction for criminal sexual conduct in the first degree (CSC–First).

Facts/Procedural Background

In 2006, H.M. (the victim) lived by herself in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. At the time, she worked for a local bakery, to which she commuted by bicycle or bus.

During her commute, the victim frequently passed Jabbers, a local grocery store, and casually greeted the people loitering outside, many of whom lived in the area and often gathered there. Although the victim did not know any of these people beyond exchanging a passing greeting, she came to learn that one of the people with whom she exchanged pleasantries was nicknamed “Black.”

The victim testified that on April 5, 2006, she arrived home from work, consumed several alcoholic beverages, and fell asleep around 8 p.m. Approximately two hours later, the victim awoke to a knock at her door. She opened the door and saw Black, who asked the victim if she either wanted to go out and share a drink, or if she would lend him money to buy beer that he could then bring back to her apartment. When the victim declined, Black continued to pester her, asking her those same two questions repeatedly.

The victim stated she became uncomfortable, so she took a step back into her apartment to place some distance between herself and Black. However, Black stepped in “aggressively” behind her, and the two sat on the victim's sofa for a brief time while Black smoked a cigarette. Shortly thereafter, Black began making lewd sexual demands and threatening the victim, stating that if she did not comply with his demands, he would kill her.

The victim firmly told Black to leave because her boyfriend was coming over.² Thereafter, Black grasped a heavy glass candleholder and repeatedly struck the victim around the forehead, ears, and mouth.

A struggle ensued, during which Black pushed the victim's cordless telephone out of her reach. Ultimately, Black wrestled the victim's pants off of her, tore off her underwear, and forcibly engaged in sexual intercourse with the victim. Black then threatened to kill the victim if she told anyone about the encounter, and left the victim's apartment.

After the victim could not find her telephone, she ran outside for help. She unsuccessfully knocked on several neighbors' doors and attempted to stop three passing cars before encountering a woman on the street near Jabbers. The woman asked the victim what happened to her, but before the victim could speak, Black approached the women.

The victim stated that she became overwhelmed by Black's presence and started crying and asking to use a telephone. Black grabbed the victim's arm and “half-carried, half-guided” the victim to an alley across the street. He told her that he had her telephone and would return it if she washed the blood off of her face. Black then forcibly held the victim's head under a nearby faucet.

After Black returned the telephone, the victim ran back to her apartment and hid under a tarp on the side of the building while she called the police. She described her assault to the responding officers and told them that her attacker's nickname was Black.

The officers were familiar with a man from the neighborhood whose nickname was Black, but whose true identity was Respondent. They searched for and located Respondent within a matter of minutes in an abandoned building across the street from Jabbers, where he was sleeping nude. Other officers escorted the victim to Jabbers's parking lot, where she positively identified Respondent as her attacker.

After identifying Respondent, the victim underwent a rape examination. The nurse conducting the examination testified that the victim had a blackened eye, a bloody nose, a split lip, bleeding on the inside of her mouth, bruising on her arms and shoulders, abrasions and lacerations on her genitals, and defensive wounds

on her hands. Further, the nurse found semen on vaginal and rectal swabs taken from the victim, as well as on various clothing and bodily swabs. The nurse stated that while the wounds and semen could be consistent with consensual sex, they were more likely the result of forcible sex.

In processing the alleged crime scene at the victim's apartment, police officers found blood stains on the victim's sofa, and her ripped underwear and a heavy glass candleholder lying on the floor. A fingerprint examiner testified that two of the three fingerprints recovered from the candleholder were Respondent's.

The following day, a police officer obtained a search warrant for Respondent's DNA to compare to the DNA recovered from the rape examination swabs. The affidavit necessary to establish probable cause for the warrant read:

On 4/5/06 at approximately 22:30 hours while at [the victim's address], the subject, [Respondent] ..., did enter the victim's residence and threatened to kill her if she did not comply with his demand to perform oral sex on her. The victim attempted to fight the subject, however he overpowered her by striking her in and about her face using a glass candle holder [sic].

The subject then penetrated the victim's vagina with his tongue and penis. The DNA samples of blood, head hair and public hair will be retrieved from the suspect by [ ] trained medical personnel in a medical facility. The collection of these samples will be conducted in a noninvasive manner.^{[ 3 ]}

A forensic DNA analyst developed a DNA profile from the rape examination swabs, and compared that profile to Respondent's DNA profile. The DNA profiles matched, with a 1 in 8.6 quintillion chance that the semen on the rape examination swabs came from an unrelated person.

Prior to the State introducing it at trial, Respondent moved to suppress the DNA evidence, arguing that the affidavit did not establish probable cause because it omitted: (1) the source of the officer's information regarding the assault, so that the Magistrate could judge the source's credibility; (2) how the officer came to suspect Respondent of the crime; (3) the victim's positive identification of Respondent as her attacker in Jabbers's parking lot; (4) photographs and physical evidence obtained of both the victim and the alleged scene of the crime; and (5) the results of the rape examination that the victim underwent, including the genital abrasions and lacerations, as well as the presence of semen. The trial court denied the motion to suppress.⁴

Ultimately, the jury convicted Respondent of CSC–First. Because of Respondent's two prior convictions for CSC–First and carjacking, both of which are “most serious offenses” under section 17–25–45(C)(1) of the South Carolina Code, the trial court imposed a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. See S.C.Code Ann. § 17–25–45 (2014).

Respondent appealed, and the court of appeals remanded the case for an additional evidentiary hearing. Jenkins, 398 S.C. at 215, 727 S.E.2d at 761. Specifically, the court of appeals found the search warrant to obtain Respondent's DNA was invalid for two reasons. Id. at 221–25, 727 S.E.2d at 764–66. First, the court of appeals held that the affidavit in support of the warrant did not establish probable cause because it contained only conclusory statements; failed to set forth the source of the facts contained therein; and lacked any information allowing the Magistrate to make a credibility determination regarding the source of the information. Id. at 222–24, 727 S.E.2d at 764–66. Second, the court of appeals found that the affidavit was defective because it did not contain any indication that the police had obtained DNA evidence from the rape examination, and thus it did not establish that Respondent's DNA would have been relevant to the investigation. Id. at 224–25, 727 S.E.2d at 766. Moreover, the court of appeals found that admitting the DNA evidence was not harmless error because it bolstered the victim's credibility regarding two critical facts: that Respondent was her attacker, and that the sexual intercourse was not consensual. Id. at 225–27, 727 S.E.2d at 766–67.

Despite reversing the trial court's admission of the DNA evidence, the court of appeals did not order a new trial, but instead remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing. See id. at 227–30, 727 S.E.2d at 767–69. The court of appeals did so in response to the State's argument that Respondent's DNA would have been inevitably discovered regardless of the defective search warrant. Id. Specifically, the State asserted that Respondent's DNA was already on file in the State's DNA Identification Record Database due to his prior conviction for CSC–First. See id. at 228, 727 S.E.2d at 768 ; see also S.C.Code Ann. §§ 23–3–610, –620(A), –620(B), –640, –650(A) (2007 & Supp.2014) (allowing the State to obtain, store, and use a criminal defendant's DNA sample as a result of prior convictions). However, because the trial court found the search warrant was not defective, the State contended it never had the opportunity to present this evidence. Jenkins, 398 S.C. at...