State v. Mathis, No. 3806.

• Court: Court of Appeals of South Carolina
• Writing for the Court: ANDERSON, J.
• Citation: 359 S.C. 450,597 S.E.2d 872
• Parties: The STATE, Respondent, v. Aaron MATHIS, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 01 June 2004
• Docket Number: No. 3806.

359 S.C. 450
597 S.E.2d 872

The STATE, Respondent,
v.
Aaron MATHIS, Appellant

No. 3806.

Court of Appeals of South Carolina.

Heard May 12, 2004.

Decided June 1, 2004.

Rehearing Denied October 21, 2004.

359 S.C. 453

Acting Chief Attorney Joseph L. Savitz, III, and Assistant Appellate Defender Robert M. Dudek, of Columbia, for Appellant

Attorney General Henry Dargan McMaster, Chief Deputy Attorney General John W. McIntosh, Assistant Deputy Attorney General Charles H. Richardson, and Assistant Attorney General W. Rutledge Martin, all of Columbia; and Solicitor Warren B. Giese, of Columbia, for Respondent.

ANDERSON, J.:

Aaron Mathis was convicted of attempted criminal sexual conduct in the second degree with a minor and incest. The trial judge sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole for the criminal sexual conduct charge and ten years, concurrent, for the incest charge. Mathis appeals his convictions, contending: (1) his prosecution was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States and South Carolina Constitutions; (2) the trial judge erred by admitting evidence of Mathis's prior bad acts; and (3) the trial judge erred by admitting certain DNA evidence. We affirm.

FACTUAL/PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

This action arises out of allegations that Mathis sexually abused his fourteen-year-old niece (the victim). In September of 2000, the victim and her mother traveled from their home in Durham, North Carolina, to spend the Labor Day weekend at the victim's grandmother's house in Columbia. On Labor Day afternoon, they had a cookout for family and friends in the area. Mathis arrived at the house later in the evening.

359 S.C. 454

The victim testified Mathis made several inappropriate advances on her that night. On one occasion, shortly after Mathis arrived, he grabbed the victim and propositioned her for sex. He offered her money, saying "I'm going to give you the money for those boots [you want]." Mathis assured the victim that she had "nothing to worry about" because he had a condom, so he would not get her pregnant. This advance was forestalled, however, when one of the victim's aunts entered the room where Mathis had approached the victim

Later that evening, the victim fell asleep while she was watching television alone in one of the bedrooms. The victim declared Mathis assaulted her while she was sleeping: "I woke up because I felt [Mathis] was in the room. He was in the room, and I felt him trying to insert his penis in me, so I woke up.... [I]t hurt real bad." Mathis left the house around 4:00 a.m. The victim returned to North Carolina without telling anyone in her family what occurred.

In January, the victim discovered she was pregnant. When her mother asked how it happened, the victim told her about the September 2000 incident with Mathis. The victim and her mother immediately traveled to Columbia and reported the conduct to the Richland County Sheriff's Department. Mathis was subsequently arrested and charged with incest and attempted criminal sexual conduct in the second degree with a minor.

Serological and DNA Evidence Collected

After reporting the conduct to the Sheriff's Department, the victim and her mother traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to have an abortion performed. As is required procedure in cases of alleged rape, an investigator employed by the Sheriff's Department was present at the abortion clinic to take fetal tissue samples and blood samples for use as evidence in the investigation. The Sheriff's Department investigator testified he received the fetal tissue and two vials of blood. The investigator was not present when the blood was drawn, but he was informed by the clinic staff that one vial contained the victim's blood and the other vial contained blood drawn from the umbilical cord. The investigator further stated he packaged the fetal tissue and blood samples and delivered them to an

359 S.C. 455

evidence technician at the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) headquarters in Columbia

Thereafter, Special Agent Steve Lambert, a DNA analyst and serologist assigned to the forensic laboratory at SLED, transferred Mathis's blood from its vial to sterile cotton cloth so that it could be properly frozen and stored for later analysis. Lambert subsequently packaged the victim's blood sample, Mathis's blood sample, and the fetal tissue in separate heat-sealed pouches and placed them in a Styrofoam container. He sent the package by Federal Express to a laboratory in Dallas, Texas, for DNA analysis.

Amber Moss, a forensic scientist at the Dallas laboratory, professed she received an unopened, sealed package from Steve Lambert at SLED containing blood samples from the victim and Mathis and the fetal tissue. Moss reported:

My results were that Aaron Mathis could not be excluded as the biological father of the fetal sample. The probability of paternity is ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent, as compared to an untested random number of the ... North American population.... Aaron Mathis is 1,252,078 times more likely to be the father of the fetal sample as a random tested individual.

At trial, the State introduced evidence of the DNA test results. The Solicitor, however, was unable to show a complete chain of custody for the blood samples taken from the victim at the Atlanta abortion clinic because no witness could testify regarding who actually drew the blood samples. Mathis moved for a mistrial, which the trial court granted. The case was retried the following month over Mathis's objection that retrial was barred under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States and South Carolina Constitutions. At the second trial, the State presented evidence of the identity of the person who drew the victim's blood at the abortion clinic, thus curing the defect that resulted in the initial mistrial.

Prior Attempted Sexual Conduct

The victim testified that Labor Day 2000 was not the first time Mathis attempted to sexually assault her. She claimed it happened on three previous occasions. The first incident occurred in November of 1999 after a Thanksgiving family

359 S.C. 456

gathering at her aunt's home in Mauldin, South Carolina. According to the victim, Mathis began rubbing the back of her thighs while she was watching television. He continued harassing the victim after the rest of the family went to bed — including trying to unbutton her pants, grabbing her hand and trying to put it into his pants, and continuing to rub her inappropriately. The victim declared Mathis attempted to cajole her acquiescence to his advances by offering to pay for a pair of boots she wanted for Christmas.

The second incident occurred on approximately January 16, 2000, again at the home of the victim's aunt in Mauldin. The victim stated she was lying on a bed alone in her cousin's bedroom. Mathis physically approached the victim and "started grinding on [her] from behind, like rubbing his penis up against [her] butt." As before, Mathis promised to give the victim money to purchase boots she wanted and offered her some jewelry he was wearing.

The third incident occurred around Easter weekend in April of 2000, at a family cookout at the victim's great-grandmother's home in Greenwood, South Carolina. Similar to the two prior incidents, the victim claimed Mathis grabbed her and started "grinding" on her and touched her inappropriately. According to the victim, Mathis's advances became more severe than before:

He came and he got on top of me, and he was like touching me and stuff. And he was trying to pull my pants down again, but I grabbed them.... And he started like touching me with his finger.... In my vagina. And he was like, "Well, I've got to get me some of this." And he said, "You let other boys have some. Why can't I have some, too?" And he was like touching me, and he pulled his pants down. And he was like trying to have sex with me, but my pants, they were like around my they were at my knees, so he couldn't get close enough to me.

The victim was ultimately able to push Mathis away before anything further happened. This incident in April of 2000 was the last time the victim saw Mathis before the conduct on Labor Day of 2000, which is the basis of the current proceeding.

359 S.C. 457

At trial, Mathis objected to the admission of the testimony regarding the allegations of these uncharged prior bad acts as being unfairly prejudicial and prohibited under State v. Lyle, 125 S.C. 406, 118 S.E. 803 (1923), and Rule 404(b), SCRE, which prohibits the admission of evidence of prior bad acts to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. The trial court allowed the testimony under the exception to that rule for evidence of prior bad acts that tends to establish a common scheme or plan.

LAW/ANALYSIS

I. Double Jeopardy

Mathis argues the Circuit Court erred when it allowed the second trial to proceed because the State's failure at the first trial to present a witness to establish the chain of custody for the victim's blood samples was intended to provoke the defense into moving for a mistrial, and therefore, the second trial was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. We disagree.

The Double Jeopardy Clauses of the United States and South Carolina Constitutions protect citizens from being placed twice in jeopardy of life or liberty. See U.S. Const. amend. V ("No person shall be ... subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb...."); S.C. Const. art. I, § 12 ("No person shall be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or liberty...."); see also State v. Cuccia, 353 S.C. 430, 434, 578 S.E.2d 45, 47 (Ct.App.2003) ("Both the United States Constitution and the South Carolina Constitution protect against double jeopardy."). The guarantee against double jeopardy has been said to consist of three separate constitutional protections. Cuccia, 353 S.C. at 434, 578 S.E.2d at 47. Under the Double Jeopardy Clause, a...