State v. Morris, 18124

• Decision Date: 18 November 1963
• Docket Number: No. 18124,18124
• Citation: 243 S.C. 225,133 S.E.2d 744
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: The STATE, Respondent, v. John MORRIS and Edward Williams, Appellants.

Page 744

133 S.E.2d 744

243 S.C. 225

The STATE, Respondent, v. John MORRIS and Edward Williams, Appellants.

No. 18124.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Nov. 18, 1963.

F. Ehrlich Thomson, J. A. Hutto, Sr., J. A. Hutto, Jr., Jenkins & Perry, Columbia, for appellants.

Solicitor John W. Foard, Jr., Columbia, for respondent.

BUSSEY, Justice.

The defendants-appellants were tried jointly; the appellant John Morris being convicted of the murder of one Martha Green Roof, and the appellant Edward Williams being convicted as accessory before the fact to the same murder. The verdict of the jury as to both appellants was guilty, without any recommendation of mercy, and both appellants, in accordance with the law of this state, were sentenced to death by electrocution.

The facts fully established by the evidence, including the confessions of the appellants, are as follows. John Morris, allegedly 76 years of age at the time of the trial, is a brother-in-law of his co-defendant Edward Williams, a much younger man. About 1950, John Morris was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was paroled during the early part of 1961. Williams was instrumental in obtaining the parole.

Williams, although illiterate, owned his own business and was apparently reasonably successful, and, in 1961 and for some time prior thereto, operated a beer parlor and/or cafe at the corner of Washington and Park Streets in the City of Columbia, about one block from police headquarters of that city.

Williams, on October 5, 1961, acquired a policy of life insurance in the amount of three thousand dollars on the life of one Martha Green Roof, she being named in the policy simply as Martha Green. The policy was payable to Edward Williams, an uncle of the insured, as beneficiary, although in point of fact Williams was no relation to the insured. Williams paid the premiums on the policy.

Some weeks later, apparently during the early part of December, 1961, Williams approached Morris and sought to induce him to murder the said Martha Green Roof for the purpose of collecting the insurance. Williams promised Morris five hundred dollars to do the job, with Williams furnishing a 38 caliber pistol for the purpose. That night Morris started out with the pistol, furnished by Williams, and with Martha to commit the crime but lost his nerve and returned Martha to the cafe and the gun to Williams. On this occasion Morris told Williams, in effect, that he could not get Martha to go with him to a point where it was safe to do the job.

On Wednesday, January 3, 1962, the appellants and the victim being again at the place of business of Williams, after considerable drinking had been engaged in by the parties, Williams against gave Morris his pistol and advanced Morris the sum of four dollars to be used by Morris to pay Martha for having a date with him at his room. To make sure that Martha would go far enough with Morris to be murdered, Morris gave the four dollars back to Williams, in the presence of Martha, to be delivered by Williams to Martha after she had filled her date with Morris.

Morris and Martha then left together and, as they were walking along a railroad track en route to the room of Morris, he, Morris, fired four shots at Martha, three of the bullets striking her and killing her almost instantly. ThereafteR Morris returned to Williams' place of business, returned the pistol and reported to Williams that 'I've done the job.'

The body of the victim was discovered between 8:15 and 8:30 P.M. on the same night; an investigation was commenced by the authorities and by January 8th, Morris was in custody as a suspect. Williams was questioned on the night of January 8th, and again on the night of January 9th, but was not incarcerated and charged with participation in the crime until January 10th, on which date both appellants, independently of each other, made full confessions of their respective parts in the crime.

Morris was represented at the trial by counsel appointed by the court, and Williams by counsel whom he employed. Both have appealed and we shall first consider the questions raised by the appellant Morris.

Morris took the stand in his own behalf and testified in detail as to his previously confessed participation in the crime, and repudiated no material fact contained in his written confession. In his confession, however, he mentioned nothing with respect to motive other than the money which he expected to receive from Williams out of the insurance proceeds. On the stand, his testimony was to the effect that money was only incidental, one of his answers with respect to questions about the money being as follows:

'He said he'd give me five hundred dollars. I told him I didn't want the money I just wanted my freedom.'

His testimony was further to the effect that he was on parole from a life sentence; that Williams had been instrumental in his obtaining a parole; and that Williams had threatened to get his parole revoked and Morris returned to the penitentiary if he, Morris, didn't go through with the crime, and that fear of this happening was his (Morris') real motive in the perpetration of the crime.

While Morris himself brought out the fact on direct examination that he was on parole from a life sentence, he did not say what crime he was serving a life sentence for. On cross-examination, the solicitor, over the objection of defense counsel, was allowed to elicit from Morris the information that he was under a life sentence for murder, and Morris now contends that such was error.

It is is argued that since Morris in his testimony fully corroborated his confession and testified as to his own guilt, his credibility was not in issue and subject to attack by the State.

It is, of course, the general rule that when a defendant takes the stand in his own behalf, proof of prior violations of the law by the defendant are admissible only for and limited to the purpose of impaching his testimony. State v. Bolin, 177 S.C. 57, 180 S.E. 809; Gantt v. Columbia Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 204 S.C. 374, 29 S.E.2d 488; State v. Van Williams, 212 S.C. 110, 46 S.E.2d 665.

Here, however, we think that Morris clearly put his credibility in issue at least with respect to his testimony as to his motive, if in no other respect. He having himself brought out the fact that he was serving a life sentence, and thus put his credibility in issue as to his motive, we think the circuit judge properly allowed the State to ask him what he was serving a life sentence for. In this connection we call attention to Section 26-406 of the 1962 Code of Laws, which section we think is clearly applicable here. See also the case of State v. Murphy, 21l S.C. 44, 56 S.E.2d 736.

The only other question raised by Morris arose out of the following occurrence. After the jury had been deliberating several hours, the jury returned to the court room and requested, among other things, that the entire testimony of Morris be read to it, which was done. Thereafter, the foreman asked the court the following question:

'Would the fact that a person is on parole from a life sentence, have any effect on the type of verdict that might be rendered?'

The Court replied:

'It has no connection with the offense charged. That's the only way I can answer and this (that) case has no connection with the offense charged as of (to) the alleged commission of this crime.'

Morris contends that the court erred in the foregoing response to the foreman's question and that the court should have charged Sections 55-611 and 55-612 of the 1962 Code of Laws governing paroles from life sentences and that the defendant's previous record would be carefully considered before any action would be taken toward granting a parole.

From the language used by the foreman, it is not precisely clear just what information he sought to elicit. Certainly, if the jury desired information as to Morris' eligibility for parole in the event of a recommendation to mercy, the question did not explicitly ask therefor. The language used by the court in reply would indicate that the court did not at the time construe the question as seeking information as to the possibility of a parole. The record would indicate that counsel did not place upon the said question, at the time, the construction thereof now argued, as no objection was made to the response by the judgment and no request was made for any further charge or for elucidation of either the question or the trial judge's response. Under the circumstances, we think the court was justified in placing the construction upon the question the court did, and in answering the question as it did. Had the court of its own volition gone beyond the answer which the court gave, and given the jury information as to the possibility of parole, it could well be argued that the court erred in doing so to the prejudice of Morris.

The question of whether a trial judge should answer and, if so, how he should answer, explicit questions coming spontaneously from the jury, with respect to the possibility of pardon or parole from any sentence imposed by the verdict of a jury, has been subject of a great deal of judicial consideration in many jurisdictions. See 23A C.J.S. Criminal Law § 1379, p. 1012, footnotes 34.5, 34.10 and 34.15; 35 A.L.R.2d 761, et seq.

There is, to say the least, a considerable lack of unanimity in the views of jurists who have considered the problem. At least a part of the division of authority on this question arises out of the fact that in some jurisdictions the power of a jury to recommend mercy and effect a diminution of punishment is to some extent circumscribed, while in others (as in South Carolina) the jury, once it has found a defendant guilty in a capital case, has unbridled discretion to effectively recommend or not to recommend to mercy.

Since the question of the foreman did not explicitly seek information as to the possibility of a parole, we are not...