State v. Speights, 19884

• Decision Date: 29 August 1974
• Docket Number: No. 19884,19884
• Citation: 208 S.E.2d 43,263 S.C. 127
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: The STATE, Respondent, v. David SPEIGHTS, Appellant.

Page 43

208 S.E.2d 43

263 S.C. 127

The STATE, Respondent, v. David SPEIGHTS, Appellant.

No. 19884.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Aug. 29, 1974.

Ernest B. Hinnant and Raymond K. McKenzie, Florence, for appellant.

Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod, Deputy Atty. Gen. C. Tolbert Goolsby, Jr., and Asst. Atty. Gen. Karen LeCraft Henderson, Columbia, and Solicitor T. Kenneth Summer-ford, Florence, for respondent.

LITTLEJOHN, Justice:

The defendant David Speights was tried upon an indictment charging him with the murder of his brother-in-law, Laverne 'Pete' Graham. He has appealed from his conviction by a jury of the offense as charged and his subsequent sentence to death by electrocution.

The primary thrust of Speight's contentions is directed upon a number of constitutional grounds. He also asserts that the trial court erred in disqualifying a member of the jury panel who expressed on voir dire her opposition to capital punishment, that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a confession made by him, and that the trial court erred in denying his motions for a directed verdict.

We first treat the directed verdict issue:

Upon appellate review of a trial court's refusal to direct a verdict in favor of a defendant, the evidence and the inferences which may be reasonably drawn therefrom must be viewed in the light most favorable to the State. Cases collected, 7A South Carolina Digest Criminal Law § 1144(13) (1971).

On the morning of October 15, 1973, the body of Laverne Graham was found in his wrecked automobile off U.S. Highway 52, approximately two miles north of Cowards, South Carolina. The investigation officer observed two wounds on the left side of Graham's head. A lead fragment was found imbedded on the inside of the right door. The left door post also showed what appeared to be a bullet hole and an impression where another bullet had struck the door post. The vehicle had apparently traveled an irregular course for a distance of approximately 800 feet after leaving the highway, coming to rest in a ditch.

Dr. Joel S. Sexton, the examining pathologist, testified that he noted two missile wounds just above Graham's left ear, both of which continued into the brain. Dr. Sexton testified that Graham's death was caused by shotgun wounds to the brain. He estimated the time of death as between 7:00 and 7:30 on the morning of October 15, 1973. He further testified that Graham had been shot at close range, probably from a distance of a few yards. Both he and a State Law Enforcement Division agent identified the lead fragments removed from Graham's brain as buckshot pellets.

Lena Bell Speights, the defendant's wife and the deceased's sister, testified that Graham and the defendant had been involved in an argument on July 13, 1973, at which time the defendant had shot at her and at Graham, prompting Graham to shoot the defendant.

In the early morning of the day of Graham's death, the defendant got into his car and left the home of Eddie Mae Hanna, with whom he had been living since his separation from his wife. Shortly after 6:00 a.m. a car resembling the defendant's car was seen parked along the side of a road in the vicinity where Graham was killed. Miss Hanna testified that upon the defendant's return to her house at approximately 7:30 a.m., he told her that 'he did what he said he was gonna do.' She further testified that the defendant had told her 'when he first got shot that he was gonna get Pete.'

Later that same day the defendant was taken into custody at his place of employment and carried to the Florence County Detention Center. Deputy Sheriff Ray Shupe, Chief Investigator for the Florence County Sheriff's Department, testified that after being advised of his constitutional rights (Miranda) the defendant identified a shotgun (shown to the authorities by Miss Hanna shortly after the discovery of Graham's body) as his gun. The defendant then admitted that, while he was driving his car on Highway 52, he saw a vehicle driven by Graham, that he drove up alongside Graham's car, and that he put his shotgun out of the window of his car and pulled the trigger. He further admitted that he had shot Graham because the latter had shot him three months earlier and had made threats against him. Shupe then testified that the defendant stated, 'I decided to get him first.' Shupe's testimony was corroborated in large part by two other officers who were present when the defendant was interrogated.

To support his contention that the trial judge erred in refusing to direct a verdict of not guilty, the defendant first invokes the well-established rule that a conviction cannot be had on the extra-judicial confession of a defendant uncorroborated by proof aliunde of the corpus delicti. Cases collected, 7A South Carolina Digest Criminal Law k535(1) (1971). In a homicide case the corpus delicti consists of two elements: death of a human being, and the criminal act of another causing death. Cases collected, 11 South Carolina Digest Homicide k228(1) (1971, Cum.Supp.1973). While these must be established by the best proof obtainable, direct and positive evidence is not essential, and such may be sufficiently proven by presumptive or circumstantial evidence when that is the best obtainable. Cases collected, 11 South Carolina Digest Homicide k228(2) (1971, Cum.Supp.1973). In this instance one need look no further than the testimony of Dr. Sexton and Miss Hanna, summarized hereinabove, in order to find sufficient proof of the two necessary elements.

In his argument concerning the sufficiency of the circumstantial evidence in this case, the defendant appears to have lost sight of the distinction between the standard applicable to the jury in its deliberations and the standard applicable to the trial court in its consideration of a motion for a directed verdict, a distinction to which this Court addressed itself in State v. Littlejohn, 228 S.C. 324, 89 S.E.2d 924 (1955):

'It must be remembered, too, that there is one test by which circumstantial evidence is to be measured by the jury in its deliberations, and quite another by which it is to be measured by the trial judge in his consideration of the accused's motion for a directed verdict. As to the former, it is necessary that every circumstance relied upon by the state be proven beyond a reasonable doubt; and that all of the circumstances so proven be consistent with each other and, taken together, point conclusively to the guilt of the accused to the exclusion of every other reasonable hypothesis . . .. But on a motion for direction of verdict, the trial judge is concerned with the existence or non-existence of evidence, not with its weight; and, although he should not refuse to grant the motion where the evidence merely raises a suspicion that the accused is guilty, it is his duty to submit the case to the jury if there be any substantial evidence which reasonably tends to prove the guilt of the accused, or from which his guilt may be fairly and logically deduced.'

It is our conclusion that the circumstances heretofore related were sufficient to warrant an inference of guilt, thus requiring the trial judge to submit the issue to the jury. There was no error in so doing.

The defendant next contends that his confession was inadmissible for two reasons: first, because he did not knowingly and voluntarily waive his privilege against self-incrimination and, secondly, because the confession was the direct result of police coercion.

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