State v. Swords, 22010
| Decision Date | 29 November 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 22010,22010 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. Gary Allen SWORDS, Appellant. |
W. Harold Christian, Jr., Greenville, for appellant.
Atty. Gen. T. Travis Medlock, Retired Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod, Asst. Attys. Gen. Harold M. Coombs, Jr. and Martha L. McElveen, Columbia, and Sol. William B. Traxler, Jr., Greenville, for respondent.
Appellant, Gary Allen Swords, was convicted of committing an assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature (ABHAN) upon his nine-year-old stepdaughter. We reverse and remand for a new trial.
The alleged basis of the State's charge that Appellant is guilty of ABHAN is that he sexually molested his nine-year-old stepdaughter and electrically shocked her with an army field telephone.
Appellant asserts that the trial judge erred in permitting in evidence: (1) the testimony of State's expert witness, Bonnie Marsden, who testified to the effect that the household wherein the prosecuting witness lived had some of the characteristics of homes where children are sexually abused; (2) evidence that Appellant once burned some clothes and a doll belonging to the prosecuting witness; and (3) testimony that the Appellant's stepson had been abused by his mother on a previous occasion. We agree that all of this testimony was either irrelevant or incompetent to establish any of the elements necessary to a conviction of the Appellant. The evidence was prejudicial and at least some of it tended to improperly place the character of the Appellant in issue when his character had not first been made an issue by the Appellant himself. See, State v. Gamble, 247 S.C. 214, 146 S.E.2d 709, appeal after remand 249 S.C. 605, 155 S.E.2d 916, cert. den., 390 U.S. 927, 88 S.Ct. 862, 19 L.Ed.2d 988 (1968).
The contention of the Appellant that evidence of the fact that the prosecuting witness had gained approximately thirty pounds since the alleged assault was inadmissible is without merit. It was proper to indicate the difference in the size of the witness at the time of the trial as compared with her size at the time of the alleged assault.
Appellant next argues that the trial court erred in admitting testimony that the prosecuting witness had been consistent in her statements before and during the trial. This exception is without merit. In many cases, the objection might be well taken but we have held that the fact that one who has been sexually assaulted reported the matter is relevant. Accordingly, in a sexual...
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Mitchell v. State, 23004
...the defendant herself first places her character in issue. State v. McElveen, 280 S.C. 325, 313 S.E.2d 298 (1984); State v. Swords, 279 S.C. 554, 309 S.E.2d 750 (1983); State v. Gamble, 247 S.C. 214, 146 S.E.2d 709 (1966). Further, evidence of prior bad acts is inadmissible to show criminal......
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State v. McConnell, 22612
...properly connected with the incident, irrelevant, incompetent, and raised spurious inferences of prior bad acts. See State v. Swords, 279 S.C. 554, 309 S.E.2d 750 (1983). There was insufficient connection between the evidence and the crime with which appellant was charged, and the cumulativ......