State v. Smith

• Decision Date: 01 June 2004
• Docket Number: No. 3804.,3804.
• Citation: 359 S.C. 481,597 S.E.2d 888
• Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
• Parties: The STATE, Respondent, v. Chad E. SMITH, Appellant.

359 S.C. 481

597 S.E.2d 888

The STATE, Respondent, v. Chad E. SMITH, Appellant.

No. 3804.

Court of Appeals of South Carolina.

Submitted April 6, 2004.

Decided June 1, 2004.

Henry Morris Anderson, Jr., of Florence, for Appellant.

Attorney General Henry Dargan McMaster, Chief Deputy Attorney General John W. McIntosh, Asst. Deputy Attorney General Charles H. Richardson, Asst. Attorney General W. Rutledge Martin, all of Columbia; and Solicitor John Gregory Hembree, of Conway, for Respondent.

HUFF, J.:

Appellant Chad Smith appeals from his convictions for homicide by child abuse and aiding and abetting homicide by child abuse. He asserts the trial judge erred in denying his motion for directed verdict and in denying his motion to sever his trial from that of his co-defendant. We affirm.

FACTUAL/PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Smith was convicted for his actions surrounding the death of Jordyn Durant, the daughter of Smith's co-defendant, Celeste Durant. In December 1999, Celeste separated from her husband, Brad Durant, with whom she had two daughters, twenty month-old Jordyn and Taylor, who was five years old at the time of the trial. Celeste became involved with Smith at some point, and Smith moved in with Celeste in February 2000. During the separation, Celeste and Brad shared custody of the children, with Celeste having them during the week and Brad having them every weekend. On Friday afternoon, July 14, 2000, Celeste phoned Brad and told him she and Smith were taking the children on a trip to the beach. The following Sunday night, Brad learned that Jordyn had been injured. Celeste told Brad they did not know what had happened to Jordyn. On Monday, July 17, 2000, Jordyn Durant died shortly after she was taken off life support.

The testimony at trial reveals that late in the evening of July 14, Smith, Celeste, Taylor, and Jordyn checked into room 408 at the Days Inn Motel in Myrtle Beach. Celeste told investigators that the children awoke the next morning and watched cartoons for a little while, and then they all dressed to go down to the beach. After spending some time on the beach, they went to the pool area. Celeste noticed Jordyn had been acting strangely that morning, and the child fell asleep in a float in the pool. At that point, she took Jordyn up to the room and attempted to feed her, but she would not eat. She gave Jordyn a bath and put her down for a nap around 12:30. When Jordyn woke up around 3:00 p.m., she was unsteady on her feet, could not walk, and fell "flat on her face." Celeste called her pediatrician in Florence, who told her to take Jordyn to the local emergency room.

Smith and Celeste took Jordyn and Taylor to Grand Strand Memorial Hospital, where Jordyn was examined by doctors. Celeste told investigators Jordyn was running a fever and the doctor was not sure what was wrong with her. After an x-ray, they found Jordyn had a skull fracture, but they believed it was an old fracture. After leaving the hospital, they went to a pharmacy to get Jordyn some Dramamine, as prescribed by the doctor. They then went to get some pizza, but Jordyn again would not eat. They went back to the motel room and fell asleep. They woke up the next morning around 8:00, and found Jordyn was difficult to wake up and was still unsteady on her feet. They checked out of their room around 10:30 that morning and went to Broadway at the Beach and Ripley's Aquarium and had lunch. Jordyn stayed in her stroller the whole time, mostly sleeping, and would not eat lunch. They went to one more place after lunch, and then headed back to Florence. Celeste indicated Jordyn slept the whole trip back, and she put the child in her bed when they got home around 4:00 or 5:00 that afternoon. When Celeste went to check on Jordyn, she found blood coming from her mouth. She called out to Smith, who began to perform CPR on the child until EMS responded. Celeste told investigators Jordyn was never out of her sight while they were in Myrtle Beach and she was never left alone with Smith or anyone else.

Smith similarly told an investigator that the four arrived at the motel around 11:30 that Friday evening and checked into room 408. He indicated, they went down on the beach around 10:30 the next morning, staying there for close to an hour before they went to the pool. Jordyn fell asleep in her float in the pool and they went upstairs, where Jordyn took a nap. After Jordyn woke up from her nap around 2:00 p.m., Smith took her out of bed and stood her up, but when she took a step, she lost her balance and fell forward on her face. He attempted to stand her up again, but she could not walk. Smith told the investigator Jordyn experienced projectile vomiting, which was dark in color. Smith used the word "we" when talking about their activities that day, and never indicated a time when he and Celeste were not together during the weekend trip.

Aside from the time they stated Jordyn fell "flat on her face" when she attempted to walk, both Celeste and Smith told investigators that Jordyn had not fallen, she had not hit her head, and nothing had happened to her.

Dr. Orion Colfer treated Jordyn on July 15, 2000 when she came to the emergency room at Grand Strand Memorial Hospital. The child arrived at the emergency room at 4:45 vomiting and having difficulty walking. In the initial interview, Celeste did not mention an accident or fall. Dr. Colfer ordered a CAT scan, and the radiologist reported Jordyn appeared to have an old skull fracture that did not show evidence of acute injury to either the brain or the soft tissue at the site of the fracture. Upon re-interview of Celeste, she told Dr. Colfer that Jordyn had fallen at daycare at some point in the past. There were no signs of bruising or swelling to indicate a traumatic injury. Dr. Colfer asked a pediatrician to examine Jordyn, and it was the pediatrician's opinion the child was suffering from a viral infection, possibly an ear infection and vertigo, that was causing her difficulty walking and her fever.

When Jordyn was transported to Carolinas Hospital System the evening of July 16, Dr. Carl John Chelen, a pediatric intensivist, was paged. At the time she arrived at the hospital, Jordyn was comatose, but was still breathing and had a normal heart rate. By the time Dr. Chelan arrived fifteen to twenty minutes later, her condition had deteriorated to the point that she was having difficulty breathing, and the emergency room physician had to put a breathing tube in Jordyn. Dr. Chelen accompanied Jordyn while another CAT scan was performed. About halfway thorough the scan, he observed evidence of significant bleeding in Jordyn's brain. Dr. Chelen began treating Jordyn for swelling in her brain and made immediate arrangements to transfer her to McLeod Medical Center. He testified there was a major difference between the CAT scan taken the day before and the one taken that evening, in that the swelling of the brain and bleeding into the brain were not evident in the CAT scan taken at Grand Strand Memorial Hospital. He further stated the difference in the two scans helped determine when the injury occurred, because with a head injury, if there is going to be internal bleeding, it normally occurs within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, with more severe injuries showing bleeding earlier. Based on the onset of symptoms as well as the fact that there was a skull fracture with no bleeding or brain swelling at the first CAT scan, he believed the injury had occurred within several hours of the first scan.

On Monday morning, July 17, 2000, Dr. Gerald Atwood, the pediatric intensive care unit director at McLeod, assumed responsibility for Jordyn. Dr. Atwood testified Jordyn had sustained severe neurological deficit. Her CAT scans revealed she had a very large fracture in the back of her head, and there was evidence of bleeding into the brain near the fracture site as well as on the opposite side of the fracture. Her brain was markedly swollen and appeared to not be getting adequate blood supply. At that point, Jordyn had very severe brain damage. The fracture left Jordyn with a free-floating piece of bone in her skull, and the brain was so swollen that it was pushing that piece of bone out, and part of her brain was pushed out through the fracture site. Dr. Atwood stated the swelling of her brain was caused by some trauma she had sustained and it was suspected Jordyn was also shaken, as evidenced by hemorrhaging of the blood vessels in her eyes that is only seen in shaken baby syndrome. He further testified the fracture was located at the hardest part of the skull, it would take tremendous force to cause that area to fracture, and because there were no external signs of a laceration, indentation or bruising, something broad and flat, as opposed to sharp or thin, would have caused this injury. He stated that the reason the initial CAT scan did not show evidence of bleeding and swelling in the brain even though the fracture was there was that Jordyn's brain was in a period of blood flow shutdown at that time. He thus determined the injury to Jordyn had to occur within a few hours of the CAT scan taken in Myrtle Beach. Dr. Atwood opined there was no way Jordyn or her sister could have caused the injury to Jordyn, noting it was not just a skull fracture, but there was also an injury from shaking, and the shaking injury alone could have caused her to be brain dead. He testified that this was "unquestionably ... [a case of] child abuse, this child was shaken and this child received trauma to her head."

When Dr. Atwood met with Celeste and Brad and explained their child would probably be declared brain dead, Celeste asked him how old the skull fracture was. Dr. Atwood told her that it could not be more than a few days old and in his opinion it occurred at the same time as the traumatic injury to the brain occurred, probably on that Saturday. He emphasized to Celeste that the time of injury was not the most...