State v. Thomas
| Decision Date | 12 December 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 18586,18586 |
| Citation | 151 S.E.2d 855,248 S.C. 573 |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. James Esther THOMAS, Appellant. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
W. T. Bolt, W. Paul Culbertson, Laurens, Tench P. Owens, Clinton, for appellant.
William T. Jones, Sol., Greenwood, for respondent.
The appellant, Thomas, was convicted of the crime of rape and sentenced to death in the General Sessions Court of Laurens County on the 17th day of February 1965. At the trial appellant was represented by three experienced attorneys.
No evidence having been offered on behalf of the appellant, the facts are stated from the uncontradicted evidence offered by the State. Appellant is an adult married man who lived in the same rural area of Laurens County as did the prosecutrix, and had been personally known to the prosecutrix for approximately four years prior to the date of the crime, which was September 19, 1964. Prosecutrix was a maiden lady, then sixty-four years of age, who lived by herself at the home where she was reared, located about one mile from a public highway, ingress thereto being by a private road. She had been employed by the Greenwood Manufacturing Company, engaged in the manufacture of women's apparel, for twenty-seven years, and prior to that time had worked for five years in a lunch room.
On the night of September 18, 1964, she retired with a sick headache at about 10:15 P.M., but had been unable to go to sleep, and shortly after midnight she heard noises and soon realized that an intruder was in her house and that he was within about five feet of her bed, whereupon she started to get up and asked, 'Who in the world is this in my house at this time of night?' In response thereto the appellant said,
Contemporaneously with such statement appellant started beating the prosecutrix, hitting her in the head and knocking her back on the bed. The prosecutrix struggled to get up, in the course of which she was choked and hit on her right arm with an iron rod of some kind which fell to the floor. The blow to prosecutrix' right arm rendered it completely useless to her. Appellant then took off his shirt, tied her hands behind her back, removed her pajama bottoms, and proceeded to rape her on the floor, during which prosecutrix screamed and hollered.
After raping the prosecutrix, appellant tore out the telephone, and managed to find prosecutrix' purse which he emptied on the bed, taking from the contents thereof money and a key case containing prosecutrix' car keys and drivers license. Appellant also located some pennies which prosecutrix was collecting and took the same.
No lights were turned on in the home of the prosecutrix but appellant struck several matches while in the house which enabled the prosecutrix to see him on several occasions and identify him by sight, although she already knew his identity from his several statements made in the course of the commission of the outrage.
At some time following the rape, prosecutrix became unconscious for a brief period, and during this interval appellant put her pajama bottoms back on her. After she regained consciousness, he dragged her out of the house to her car and en route showed her the window through which he had gained entrance tot he home. After pushing prosecutrix into her car, appellant drove the same to an area near Lake Greenwood with the avowed purpose of drowning her. Appellant, however, did not actually attempt to drown her. He evidently vacillated as to just what he should do with her, stopped her car at three different places, and repeatedly threatened to kill her in different ways. In the course of the automobile journey, he further struck and choked her.
At the last stop appellant made he apparently got scared. Three cars passed by and prosecutrix told him that a nephew was to come for her at 3 o'clock, and that he would be out looking for her and that appellant would be killed, too. In any event, the appellant decided to untie her hands and release her, telling her, Prosecutrix promised him that she would go home before he untied her.
Instead of going directly home, prosecutrix drove to the nearest place where she thought she could readily get help, the home of Mr. J. R. Neel, arriving there at approximately 4 A.M. Mr. Neel contacted one of his neighbors who then took prosecutrix to Self Memorial Hospital in Greenwood. Sheriff R. Eugene Johnson of Laurens County was promptly notified, he receiving the call at 4:22 A.M.
The prosecutrix was examined at the hospital by her regular physician, Dr. A. E. Adams, at about 6:20 A.M. His examination disclosed the following injuries: numerous severe bruises and swollen areas over the scalp; a blackish blue bruised area over the forehead at the midline; both right eyelids were markedly swollen; her right ear was black and blue with a bruised area from hemorrhage; scratches and dark areas on her neck; a broken nose; bruises over the front of her chest; and her right shoulder was black and blue over its entire area extending down to just below the elbow on the right arm. The prosecutrix was in a highly disturbed emotional state and was weeping. In addition to the foregoing, Dr. Adams tetified as follows:
The specimen taken by Dr. Adams from prosecutrix' vagina was examined by Drs. May and McGruder, pathologists at the Self Memorial Hospital in Greenwood, and Dr. Adams, without objection, in the course of his testimony read into the record the following report from Dr. May,
Dr. Adams was of the opinion that the prosecutrix was a maiden lady who had not had sexual relations with any man prior to her being raped. He had found it necessary to do a hysterectomy on prosecutrix some years previously, at which time her hymen was still intact, until ruptured in the course of the examination with reference to the hysterectomy.
Sheriff Johnson was called by Mr. Neel and proceeded to a store near the home of Mr. Neel where he was joined by a deputy sheriff whom he had called, and later by a SLED agent. As a result of information received by the sheriff, he and other law officers promptly commenced to search for the appellant and went to several residences, including that of appellant, looking for him without success. He finally located appellant at about 7:40 A.M. in a bedroom in the home of appellant's father-in-law, where he was in the act of changing his clothes. The officers took appellant into custody and took his clothes which he was in the process of removing, which consisted of overalls, shirt and shorts, which were wet, it having been misting rain for some time before. In the course of the arrest, appellant gave to the sheriff a five dollar bill.
The appellant was then taken to the detention offices of the Greenwood County jail, where, at approximately 8:40 A.M., the sheriff obtained from the appellant two ten dollar bills, twenty-seven pennies and the key case containing the car keys and drivers license belonging to the prosecutrix. In the automobile of the prosecutrix the law officers found a man's jacket and a combination tire tool and lug wrench, which inferentially was the weapon referred to by the prosecutrix as an iron rod. All of the foregoing items obtained from the appellant and the items found in the automobile of prosecutrix were offered in evidence, without objection. Also introduced in evidence were the pajama bottoms worn by the prosecutrix on the night of the attack. There was blood on the same, as well as on the shorts worn by appellant.
This being a capital case, the in favorem vitae rule requires us to search the entire record for any prejudicial error affecting any substantial right of the appellant, regardless of whether made the basis of an exception here, in addition to considering the questions raised by the exceptions.
Appellant's first contention is that the verdict of guilty was contrary to the weight of the evidence in that there was no clear and positive evidence of penetration, a necessary element of the crime of rape. The argument in support of this contention is predicated to some extent on the contention that since this is a death case, the court should exclude from consideration, as hearsay evidence, the pathologist's report hereinabove referred to, even though there was no objection to its introduction. It is argued, however, that even considering the pathologist's report, there is still insufficient evidence of penetration.
When all of the evidence, with reference to penetration, including the report of the pathologist, is...
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...916 (1967);State v. Cannon, 248 S.C. 506, 151 S.E.2d 752 (1966);State v. Gamble, 247 S.C. 214, 146 S.E.2d 709 (1966);State v. Thomas, 248 S.C. 573, 151 S.E.2d 855 (1966);State v. Cain, 246 S.C. 536, 144 S.E.2d 905 (1965);State v. Swilling, 246 S.C. 144, 142 S.E.2d 864 (1965), cert. denied, ......
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