State v. Singleton, 19386
Decision Date | 09 March 1972 |
Docket Number | No. 19386,19386 |
Citation | 187 S.E.2d 518,258 S.C. 125 |
Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. George SINGLETON and Ernest Charles Jones, Appellants. |
Matthew J. Perry, of Jenkins, Perry & Pride, Columbia, Franklin R. DeWitt, Conway, and Ernest A. Finney, Jr., Sumter, for appellants.
Solicitor J. M. Long, Jr., Conway, Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod and Asst. Atty. Gen. Emmet H. Clair, Columbia, for respondent.
George Singleton and Ernest Charles Jones, the appellants herein, were arrested on April 4, 1970 and charged with the offense of rape. Thereafter, at the 1971 March Term of the Court of General Sessions for Horry County, they were brought to trial and convicted, with a recommendation to mercy. Each of the appellants was sentenced pursuant to Section 16--72, of the Code.
At appropriate stages of the trial, the appellants made motions for a directed verdict on the ground that the State had failed to establish that they committed the offense of rape as charged in the indictment. The appellants, following the verdict, renewed their motion for a directed verdict or in the alternative for a new trial, upon grounds which will be hereinafter discussed. These motions were refused and this appeal followed.
It appears from the record that on Friday, April 3, 1970, at about 10:30 P.M., the prosecutrix, a nurse, reported for duty on the night shift at Ocean View Memorial Hospital in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Approximately one hour later, she was called home to attend her sick child. Thereafter, between 1:00 and 1:30 A.M. o'clock, April 4, 1970, she returned to Ocean View Memorial Hospital to go back to work. When she stopped her car in a parking area outside the rear entrance of the hospital, she noticed that a car had pulled in behind her and she sat in her car for a minute before stopping her engine. The other car proceeded to a point about four parking spaces beyond her car and stopped. She noticed that there were two men in the other car, one of whom got out of the car and walked towards the rear door of the hospital. She then got out of her car to go in the hospital, but was stopped by the man whom she thought had gone into the hospital. He grabbed her by the arm and told her to come with him, and he put a pistol to her back. The other man who had gotten out of the car, came to where she was and grabbed her by the other arm. She was then taken to the car where she sat between the two men. As they drove from the hospital lot, one of the men kept pointing a gun at her. The car was driven some distance to a clearing in the woods where they stopped. The prosecutrix trix was required to disrobe and both men forcibly raped her twice. After about two hours she was permitted to dress and was driven back to the hospital where she reported the incident to other nurses, a policeman and a physician who examined her.
The appellants were arrested, without a warrant, in Myrtle Beach during the early evening of April 4, 1970, by Lt. G. W. Thompkins of the police department of that city and placed in the city jail.
The first question for determination is whether there was sufficient probable cause to justify the arrest of the appellants. It is their contention that the court erred in refusing to hold that they were unlawfully arrested and all articles seized or obtained from them were inadmissible as evidence.
We have held that it is the function of the court to determine from the evidence whether a warrantless arrest was supported by probable cause. State v. Hamilton, 251 S.C. 1, 159 S.E.2d 607.
In the Hamilton case we quoted with approval the following:
'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 evidence shows that during the prosecutrix's interview with the police she gave the officer a description of her assailants, the automobile used and of various articles that she observed within the automobile. Immediately following this, the officer put out an 'all points bulletin'. Thereafter, he went to the scene of the alleged crime and there found tennis shoe tracks and automobile tire tracks in the soil.
It appears that officer Thompkins of the Myrtle Beach Police Department came on duty on 6:00 P.M. on April 4, 1970, and was given the information that the prosecutrix had been raped and, as a result of what he was told, he was on the look-out for an old blue four-door car which would have a tape deck in the front center of the dash and a box in the right front floorboard. He was also alerted that there would be a pair of brown buckle type shoes in the car and two suspects. They were described as: (1) colored male, approximately 5 8 in height, 20--27 years of age, small and thin build; and (2) colored male, larger and huskier than number one and maybe older, and they were wearing tennis shoes. This officer testified that after receiving this information he saw a blue four-door car with four colored occupants parked on a street in the city of Myrtle Beach. The officer observed the car and approached it. The driver got out and he saw that he was a colored male, slim in build. The driver went into a restaurant and came out. The other colored male, larger and heavier, appearing to be the same age, got out of the back seat. Both men were wearing tennis shoes. The car drove off and the officer followed it down the street from where he had first seen it. When he went up to the car, he observed that a tape player was in the center of the dash and a box on the right front floorboard. He also observed a pair of brown shoes on the right rear floorboard. The appellant Jones and the car were taken to the police station and, thereafter, the other appellant was arrested.
The trial judge found as a fact, based on the foregoing testimony, that the officer had sufficient probable cause to arrest the appellants and held that the arrest was lawful. We think the evidence supported the ruling of the trial judge. The arresting officer had reliable information that a felony had been committed and with a description of the automobile and its contents and of the suspects, he was justified in concluding that the appellants were the ones who had committed the crime.
After the appellants had been lawfully arrested and lodged in the city jail, a search warrant was obtained and served upon the appellant Jones who was driving the automobile in question at the time of his arrest. The officers, under the authority of the aforesaid warrant, searched the automobile in question, obtaining therefrom a box, a pistol, a ballpoint pen containing red ink, a pair of surgical scissors and some clothes in a plastic bag. They also obtained the tennis shoes worn by the appellants and four tires from the automobile. There was no warrantless search of the automobile. The appellants do not challenge the validity of the search warrant.
It is our conclusion that there was probable cause for the arrest of the appellants without a warrant. The various articles taken from the automobile and the appellants were not illegally obtained.
The appellants' next assignment of error is based on the contention that their in-court identification by the prosecutrix was tainted by a pre-trial line-up identification. They argue that the trial judge erred in permitting the prosecutrix to identify them as the persons who raped her.
The prosecutrix testified that she could identify the two men who raped her and when asked if either or both of them were in the courtroom she answered that they were. She was then directed to point them out. The appellants interposed an objection and...
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