The Town of Mt. Pleasant v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 11 July 2011
• Docket Number: No. 27005.,27005.
• Citation: 393 S.C. 332,713 S.E.2d 278
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: The TOWN OF MT. PLEASANT, Appellant,v.Treva ROBERTS, Respondent.

393 S.C. 332

713 S.E.2d 278

The TOWN OF MT. PLEASANT, Appellant,

v.Treva ROBERTS, Respondent.

No. 27005.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Heard June 7, 2011.Decided July 11, 2011.

Charles Mac Gibson, Jr., of Charleston, and Ira A. Grossman, of Mt. Pleasant, for Appellant.Diedreich P. von Lehe, III, of Charleston, for Respondent.Justice BEATTY.

The Town of Mount Pleasant (“Town”) appeals the circuit court's order reversing and dismissing Treva Roberts's municipal court conviction for driving under the influence (“DUI”) ¹ on the ground the arresting officer's vehicle was not equipped with a video camera pursuant to section 56–5–2953 of the South Carolina Code.² The Town contends the circuit court erred in: (1) ruling on the appeal as it was divested of appellate jurisdiction given Roberts failed to obtain a bond or pay her court-ordered fine prior to initiating her appeal; and (2) “narrowly construing” section 56–5–2953 to require the reversal of Roberts's DUI conviction and dismissal of the charge. We affirm as modified.

I. Factual/Procedural History

On November 11, 2007, at approximately 1:00 a.m., Officer Bruce Burbage of the Town of Mount Pleasant's Police Department conducted a traffic stop of Roberts after observing her driving erratically. As a result of his initial observations, Officer Burbage conducted three field sobriety tests, on which he noted Roberts “performed pretty poorly.”

Subsequently, Officer Burbage arrested Roberts for DUI and transported her to the Mount Pleasant Police Department where Roberts was offered, but refused, a breathalyzer test. There was no recording of the initial traffic stop, field sobriety tests, or the arrest as neither Officer Burbage's vehicle nor the backup officer's was equipped with a video camera.³

In response to Roberts's discovery motions,⁴ which included a request for production of the incident site videotape, the Town's prosecutor forwarded an “Affidavit for Failure to Produce Videotape” executed by Officer Burbage on October 16, 2009. The affidavit, a form generated by the Town, included a “checked” box that stated:

At the time of the Defendant's arrest the vehicle I was operating had not been equipped with a videotaping device and therefore pursuant to Section 18 of Senate Bill 174 of 1998,⁵ the videotaping requirement regarding vehicles is not applicable.

On October 30, 2009, a municipal court judge conducted a jury trial on Roberts's DUI charge. Prior to trial, Roberts moved to dismiss the charge based on Officer Burbage's failure to videotape the entire arrest pursuant to section 56–5–2953. Roberts asserted that section 56–5–2953 conferred upon her a statutory right to have the roadside arrest videotaped. Because Officer Burbage failed to comply with the statutorily-mandated procedure, Roberts claimed this violation warranted the dismissal of her DUI charge. The motion to dismiss was denied.

The Town relied on subsection (G) of the statute for the proposition that the videotaping requirement took effect only “once the law enforcement vehicle is equipped with a videotaping device.” ⁶ Because Officer Burbage's vehicle was not equipped with a video camera, the Town argued that the videotaping provisions of section 56–5–2953 were inapplicable and, thus, the failure to videotape Roberts's arrest did not warrant the dismissal of the DUI charge.⁷

In support of her motion, Roberts called several law enforcement officers from Charleston, Berkeley, and Dorchester counties in an attempt to establish that the Town had fewer video cameras than other municipalities despite the Town's significantly higher number of DUI arrests.⁸ Given these statistics, Roberts argued that the Town had willfully avoided complying with the 1998 statute as it had not requested from the South Carolina Department of Public Safety (DPS) additional video cameras in response to the increasing number of DUI arrests. Roberts also offered evidence that the Town was financially able to purchase additional video cameras, but had chosen not to do so.⁹

The Town countered Roberts's arguments by claiming that DPS was solely responsible for providing the video cameras and, thus, the Town did not have a duty to request or purchase additional cameras in order to comply with the statute.¹⁰

At the conclusion of the pre-trial hearing, the municipal court judge denied Roberts's motion to dismiss based on a “strict interpretation” of section 56–5–2953. In his written return, the judge concluded that “there is no requirement that the Town of Mount Pleasant obtain any video cameras and that the statute only provides what the Town must do once they get the video cameras on board.” Further, the judge ruled that “Section 56–5–2953(G) indicated that the other provisions of [the statute] take effect ... once the vehicle is equipped with a [videotaping] device.”

Roberts was convicted and appealed her conviction to the circuit court, arguing the municipal court judge erred in denying her motion to dismiss the charge based upon the Town's failure to comply with the “mandatory” videotaping provisions of section 56–5–2953.

The Town moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction based on Roberts's failure to obtain a bond or pay the court-ordered fine prior to initiating the appeal. The Town contended the circuit court was without jurisdiction to rule on the appeal given Roberts did not comply with the procedural requirements of section 14–25–95 of the South Carolina Code, ¹¹ which governs appeals from municipal court to circuit court.

The circuit court judge issued a written order in which it reversed Roberts's DUI conviction and dismissed the charge. The judge initially determined that it had “subject matter jurisdiction” to hear the appeal. In so ruling, the judge found jurisdiction was vested in the circuit court when Roberts timely filed and served her notice of appeal as required by section 14–25–95. The judge further concluded that Roberts's “non-entry into a bond and non-payment of the fine assessed [did] not deprive [the court] of the subject matter jurisdiction.” Additionally, the judge held that all issues with respect to the non-entry into a bond or non-payment of the fine were moot as Roberts had appeared at the hearing and paid her fine the day of the hearing.

As to the merits of Roberts's appeal, the judge specifically found that the videotaping requirements of section 56–5–2953 were mandatory based on this Court's decision in City of Rock Hill v. Suchenski, 374 S.C. 12, 646 S.E.2d 879 (2007).¹² Interpreting subsection (G) of the statute, the judge concluded that this provision was “merely to provide a reasonable grace period for law enforcement agencies to equip their vehicles with video recording devices.” The judge explained that to construe subsection (G) as proposed by the Town would permit law enforcement agencies to “successfully circumvent [the statute's videotaping requirements] ad infinitum ” by not requesting video cameras from DPS.

The judge also ruled that the Town's failure to produce a videotape of Roberts's conduct at the incident site was not “excused” as none of the enumerated exceptions in subsection (B) of section 56–5–2953 ¹³ were satisfied.

The judge concluded that the Town's failure to comply with the videotaping requirements a decade after the enactment of section 56–5–2953 was “unreasonable” and constituted a violation of the statute that warranted the reversal of Roberts's conviction and the dismissal of the DUI charge.

The Town appealed the circuit court's order to the Court of Appeals. This Court certified the case from the Court of Appeals pursuant to Rule 204(b), SCACR.

II. Discussion

A. Standard of Review

“In criminal appeals from a municipal court, the circuit court does not conduct a de novo review; rather, it reviews the case for preserved errors raised to it by an appropriate exception.” City of Cayce v. Norfolk S. Ry. Co., 391 S.C. 395, 399, 706 S.E.2d 6, 8 (2011); see S.C.Code Ann. § 14–25–105 (Supp.2010) (“There shall be no trial de novo on any appeal from a municipal court.”). “Therefore, our scope of review is limited to correcting the circuit court's order for errors of law.” Suchenski, 374 S.C. at 15, 646 S.E.2d at 880.

B. Appellate Jurisdiction

As a threshold matter, we must address the Town's jurisdictional challenge as any defect in the circuit court's appellate jurisdiction would necessarily affect this Court's jurisdiction to rule on the Town's appeal.

The Town asserts the circuit court judge erred in characterizing its jurisdictional challenge as one that implicated subject matter jurisdiction rather than appellate jurisdiction. The Town avers the circuit court judge did not have appellate jurisdiction to rule on Roberts's appeal given Roberts failed to either pay the court-ordered fine or obtain a bond prior to initiating her appeal to the circuit court. Under the Town's interpretation of section 14–25–95, the circuit court could only be vested with appellate jurisdiction if one of the above-listed prerequisites was satisfied.

Because our analysis of this issue and the Town's second issue is dependent upon our evaluation of the applicable statutes, we begin with an overview of this state's well-established rules of statutory construction.

1.

“The primary rule of statutory construction is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the legislature.” Bryant v. State, 384 S.C. 525, 529, 683 S.E.2d 280, 282 (2009). When a statute is penal in nature, it must be strictly construed against the State and in favor of the defendant. State v. Blackmon, 304 S.C. 270, 273, 403 S.E.2d 660, 662 (1991). However, “[a]ll rules of statutory construction are subservient to the one that the legislative intent must prevail if it can be reasonably discovered in the language used, and that language must be construed in light of the intended purpose of the statute.” State v. Sweat, 386 S.C. 339, 351, 688 S.E.2d 569, 575 (2010) (citation omitted).

In...