State v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 16 April 1953
• Docket Number: No. 16736,16736
• Citation: State v. Robinson, 223 S.C. 314, 75 S.E.2d 465 (S.C. 1953)
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. ROBINSON.

Page 465

75 S.E.2d 465

223 S.C. 314

STATE v. ROBINSON.

No. 16736.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

April 16, 1953.

C. T. Graydon and John Grimball, Columbia, for appellant.

T. Pou Taylor, Sol., Columbia, for respondent.

BAKER, Chief Justice.

The appellant was tried and convicted at the May (1952) term of the Richland County Court of General Sessions on an indictment charging that he, with numerous other persons, entered into a conspiracy to defraud the State by the sale, delivery and giving to certain individuals named in the indictment, to wit, Samuel B. Marshall, D. J. Marshall, Benjamin J. Cooper, and others about to take the state teacher's examination in 1949, answers to questions contained in such examination; and from the verdict of guilty and sentence imposed, he appeals.

The machination of the scheme is so fully set forth in Pettiford v. South Carolina State Board of Education, 218 S.C. 322, 62 S.E.2d 780, it is unnecessary that we again outline same.

There are twenty-two exceptions, but in stating the 'Questions Involved,' appellant has reduced these to five issues, which will not be taken up in the order stated in his printed brief.

We will first pass upon (Question No. IV) whether the trial Judge erred in refusing the motion of appellant for a direction of verdict of not guilty, and failing in that, in not granting him a new trial. In that a new trial must be granted the appellant for other reasons, we will refrain from discussing such testimony as is contained in the record which may be said tended to prove the offense alleged in the indictment. Suffice it to say we have read the record and, construing the testimony in the light most favorable to the prosecution, which must be done in passing upon a motion for a direction of verdict, keeping in mind, however, that the defendant is entitled to the benefit of any reasonable doubt thereabout, State v. Shackelford, 220 S.C. 519, 68 S.E.2d 450, have reached the conclusion that we cannot hold as a matter of law that the trial Judge erred in not granting the motion for the direction of verdict in appellant's behalf.

We will now go back to Questions Nos. II and III, reading respectively as follows:

'Did the Trial Judge err in admitting hearsay testimony for the sole purpose of corroborating one of two contradictory statements made by a prosecuting witness?'

'Did the Trial Judge err in admitting testimony in reply by the State that was not contradictory of any testimony offered by the defense and which was also hearsay testimony?'

The chief witness for the prosecution was Samuel Marshall, who testified that he had been given the key answers to the examination questions by the appellant on the night before the examination was to be held, and had been allowed to use appellant's office and typewriter to make other copies of same, and that later he made additional copies in pencil or pen, and had sold to others who were taking the examination at least two, if not three, of these copies for which he had received one hundred to one hundred and twenty dollars, no part of which was ever paid to the appellant. In fact, the appellant made no charge to him for the copy of the key answers he received from the appellant. During the trial, while the defense was cross-examining this witness (Samuel Marshall), the defense procured from the State's prosecuting officer, the Solicitor, and introduced them in evidence, two written statements, both of which had been made under oath by this witness. These statements were contradictory as to the source from which the witness had procured the key answers. In his first sworn written statement, he had stated that he procured the answers to the examination from a man named Robert Bellinger, who lived in Orangeburg, and in his second sworn written statement, made at a later date, he said he had gotten the answers to the examination from the appellant. After these contradictory statements were introduced in evidence, the prosecution called Robert Bellinger as a witness, and the trial Judge, over the vigorous objections of the appellant's counsel, permitted Bellinger to testify in the minutest details to a conversation between him and the witness Samuel Marshall in Orangeburg, when only the two of them were present, all for the purpose of showing that he (Bellinger) had at one time agreed for...