State v. Stokes

• Decision Date: 29 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. 25298.,25298.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: The STATE, Respondent, v. Sammie Louis STOKES, Appellant.

345 S.C. 368

548 S.E.2d 202

The STATE, Respondent, v. Sammie Louis STOKES, Appellant.

No. 25298.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Heard April 4, 2001.

Decided May 29, 2001.

Rehearing Denied July 2, 2001.

Deputy Chief Attorney Joseph L. Savitz, III, of South Carolina Office of Appellate Defense, of Columbia, for appellant.

Attorney General Charles M. Condon, Chief Deputy Attorney General John W. McIntosh, Assistant Deputy Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka, Assistant Attorney General Tracey C. Green, all of Columbia, and Solicitor Walter M. Bailey, Jr., of Summerville, for respondent.

WALLER, Justice:

Sammie Louis Stokes was convicted of murder, kidnapping, first degree criminal sexual conduct (CSC), and criminal conspiracy. He was respectively sentenced to death, thirty years, and 5 years.¹ This appeal consolidates his direct appeal with the mandatory review provisions of S.C.Code Ann. § 16-3-25 (1985). We affirm the convictions and sentences.

FACTS

Stokes was hired by Patti Syphrette to kill her daughter-inlaw, 21-year-old Connie Snipes, for $2000.00. On May 22, 1998, Syphrette called Stokes and told him Connie "got to go and tonight." At 9:30 pm that evening, Syphrette and Snipes picked up Stokes at a pawn shop, and the three of them went to Branchville and picked up Norris Martin.² The four of them then drove down a dirt road in Branchville and stopped. Syphrette remained in the car while Stokes, Martin and Snipes walked into the woods. When they got into the woods, Stokes told Snipes, "Baby, I'm sorry, but it's you that Pattie wants dead ..."

According to Norris Martin, Stokes forced Snipes to have sex with Martin at gunpoint. After Martin was finished, Stokes had sex with Snipes. While doing so, Stokes grabbed her breast and stabbed her in the chest, cutting both her nipples. Stokes then rolled her over and began having anal sex with her. When Stokes was finished, he and Martin each shot the victim one time in the head,³ and then dragged her body into the woods. Stokes then took Martin's knife and scalped her, throwing her hair into the woods. According to Martin, Stokes then cut Snipes' vagina out.⁴

Snipes' body was found by a farmer on May 27th, and Martin's wallet was found in the field near it. Martin was interviewed by police the following morning, after which police went to the Orangeburg home of Pattie Syphrette's husband Poncho; by the time police arrived at the home on May 28, 1998, Stokes and Syphrette had already murdered Doug Ferguson by wrapping duct tape around his body and head, suffocating him.⁵

Stokes was tried and convicted of murder, kidnapping, first degree criminal sexual conduct, and criminal conspiracy.

ISSUES

1. Did the trial court err in redacting portions of Stokes' statement to police which indicated Snipes had willingly gone to Branchville in order to kill Doug Ferguson?

2. Did the trial court err in limiting Stokes' discussion of religion in his closing statement to the jury?

1. REDACTED STATEMENT

Stokes wrote a lengthy letter to police in which he gave a detailed account of his participation in both the Snipes and Ferguson murders. Prior to trial, Stokes agreed on the record that he intended to "keep out everything as it relates to Doug Ferguson" from the guilt phase.

At trial, the solicitor moved to redact portions of Stokes' letter which indicated Snipes had been misled into believing they were all going to Branchville that evening for the purpose of killing Doug Ferguson. Counsel for Stokes maintained this portion of Stokes' letter should not be redacted, claiming it demonstrated Snipes had voluntarily accompanied Stokes and Syphrette to Branchville and had willingly gone into the woods with Stokes, thereby rebutting the State's claim of kidnapping. He also argued this portion of the statement was admissible under Rule 106, SCRE. We find the statement was properly redacted.

Stokes sought to admit the following portions of his letter to police:

She [Syphrette] said Connie thinks we are going to kill Doug and she thinks we already got him tied up in Branchville somewhere. She [Syphrette] said I wish that were true so we could do all both of them. She said Connie can't stand Doug and wants to be there to help us and besides she wants to meet you anyway, I know you've been talking to her on the phone when Roy calls and I wasn't home. ... While riding to Branchville, Connie said Doug ain't shit and I'd love to see him get his. She said I had plans tonight but this is better. ...

That's when Connie said well where is he at.

The unredacted portion of the letter continues, "I said `Baby, I'm sorry but it's you that Pattie wants dead.'"

Contrary to Stokes' assertion, the redacted portions do not reflect that Snipes voluntarily rode to her death but, rather, serve only to demonstrate that she was, in fact, tricked into going into the woods. As such, the fact that she was "inveigled" or "decoyed"⁶ into going to Branchville negates, in legal contemplation, the voluntariness of her participation.⁷

Addressing analogous situations under the federal kidnapping statute, several courts have reached similar conclusions. As noted by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Hughes, 716 F.2d 234, 239 (4th Cir.1983), "nothing in the policy of the ... kidnapping statute justifies rewarding the kidnapper simply because he is ingenious enough to conceal his true motive from his victim until he is able to transport her... [to another location]." See also United States v. Atkinson, 916 F.Supp. 959 (D.S.D.1996)

(victim's voluntary presence may nonetheless amount to inveigling); United States v. Boone, 959 F.2d 1550 (11th Cir.1992) (where kidnapper accompanies inveigled victim, victim is kept from acting in entirely voluntary manner by acts, presence, and intent of inveigling kidnapper, he is ensnared within net that kidnapper's deception has prevented him from seeing, and in such a case victim's act of accompanying kidnapper is not voluntary and does not amount to legally valid consent); United States v. Hoog, 504 F.2d 45, 51 (8th Cir.1974) (kidnapping victim who accepted a ride from someone who misled her into believing that she would be taken to her desired destination was "inveigled" or "decoyed" within the meaning of the federal kidnapping statute).⁸

Here, the undisputed evidence of record is that Snipes was successfully lured into the woods for the alleged purpose of murdering Doug Ferguson when, in fact, the sole purpose of Stokes, Syphrette and Martin was to murder Snipes. Accordingly, rather than negating the charge of kidnapping, the redacted portions of the statement simply bolster the State's claim that Snipes did not "voluntarily" accompany her assailants but, rather, was inveigled into the woods by them. Cf. Ray v. State, 330 S.C. 184, 498 S.E.2d 640 (1998)

(inveigling victim into truck under false pretense that she was being taken to the hospital constituted kidnapping). We find the statement was properly redacted.

Moreover, even assuming arguendo, as Stokes claims, that the redacted portions of his statement were relevant to demonstrate the victim voluntarily accompanied them on the night of her murder, any error in the redaction is harmless. Both Stokes' letter and the testimony of Norris Martin amply demonstrate that Connie Snipes voluntarily went with Stokes and Syphrette to Branchville, and that she willingly walked into the woods with Martin and Stokes. Accordingly, the jury was well aware that she had accompanied them voluntarily, and Stokes has failed to demonstrate any prejudice from the redaction. State v. Taylor, 333 S.C. 159, 508 S.E.2d 870 (1999)(in order for this Court to reverse a case based on the erroneous exclusion of evidence, prejudice must be shown); State v. Bell, 302 S.C. 18, 393 S.E.2d 364 (1990).⁹ Finally, the redacted portions were not admissible under Rule 106, SCRE, which provides:

When a writing, or recorded statement, or part thereof is introduced by a party, an adverse party may require the introduction at that time of any other part of any other writing or recorded statement which ought in fairness to be considered contemporaneously with it. (Emphasis supplied).

"Only that portion of the remainder of a statement which explains or clarifies the previously admitted portion should be introduced." State v. Taylor, 333 S.C. 159, 171, 508 S.E.2d 870, 876 (1998). See also State v. Gay, 343 S.C. 543, 541 S.E.2d 541 (2001)

.

Here, the redacted excerpts do not explain or clarify the previously admitted portions but, rather, would only have confused the jury as to the identity of Doug Ferguson. Accordingly, the redacted statements need not, in fairness to Stokes, have been admitted pursuant to Rule 106, SCRE. Gay, supra.

The trial court properly redacted the statement.

2. REFERENCES TO GOD

At sentencing, Stokes elected to exercise his statutory right to make a closing statement to the jury.¹⁰ While addressing the jury, Stokes stated:

In my statement I never denied my involvement but the statement I gave was truthful and I do have a conscience, that's one of the main reasons why I gave the statement. You know, I been in trouble before but nothing like this before so I felt I had to set the record straight. But I give one statement and I give a honest one, I didn't [sic] four or five, I give one. And I'm deeply sorry that any of it ever happened and I'm also sorry for the role that I played in it.

You know, I prayed and prayed and prayed and have asked God to forgive me—

At this point, the solicitor asked to approach the bench and Stokes continued, "But I'm asking for forgiveness." After a bench conference, Stokes continued,

Well, I would just like to say that I will forever be sorry for the role that I played in it and most of all I truly feel for the family and if I could turn back the hand of time none of this would have occurred and I wouldn't be standing before ya'll now pleading for my life. And once again, I

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