Williams v. Leeke, 19303
| Decision Date | 01 November 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 19303,19303 |
| Citation | 184 S.E.2d 441,257 S.C. 104 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | Edward WILLIAMS and John Morris, Appellants, v. William D. LEEKE, as successor to Ellis C. MacDougall, Director, SouthCarolina Department of Corrections, State of South Carolina, Respondent. |
Matthew J. Perry and Lincoln C. Jenkins, Jr., Columbia, for williams.
J. A. Hutto, Jr., Columbia, for Morris.
Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod and Asst. Atty. Gen. Emmet H. Clair, Columbia, for respondent.
Nine years ago John Morris and Edward Williams were convicted, respectively, of murder and accessory before the fact. They were sentenced to death by electrocution. We affirmed the conviction, State v. Morris, 243 S.C. 225, 133 S.E.2d 744 (1963), and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari, 377 U.S. 1001, 84 S.Ct. 1935, 12 L.Ed.2d 1050, rehearing denied, 379 U.S. 873, 85 S.Ct. 24, 13 L.Ed.2d 81. Subsequent habeas corpus proceedings in federal court, reported at Williams v. State, 237 F.Supp. 360 and Morris v. State, 356 F.2d 432, were ultimately suspended so that the appellants might exhaust their state remedies. Habeas corpus proceedings were begun in the court of common pleas. After receiving testimony on three separate occasions, the court found no merit in the petitions and denied relief. Both petitioners appealed. Pending the appeal, the sentences were commuted to life imprisonment, whereupon Morris withdrew his appeal. We now dispose of the issues raised by Williams, the remaining appellant, except his challenges to imposition of the death penalty, which have become moot.
At the trial in 1962, a confession made by appellant was admitted into evidence. An insurance policy which Williams had procured on the victim's life shortly before her murder was also admitted. In his habeas corpus petition, appellant alleges that the confession was elicited under circumstances of coercion, and that it and the insurance policy to which it led the police, should have been excluded from evidence. This ground of objection was rejected on the previous appeal and by the court below in this proceeding. The appellant now contends, in substance, that his confession, and the insurance policy it revealed, were inadmissible since the confession occurred following his illegal arrest. The arrest was lawful because it was made upon probable cause. The evidence was fully stated in our former opinion. Suffice it to say now that Williams' arrest followed the identification of his pistol, which he customarily kept in his cafe where the victim was last seen alive, as the murder weapon.
Appellant further charges that the insurance policy should have been excluded from evidence as the fruit of an illegal search. Police officers obtained the policy from the appellant's wife, who fetched it at their request while they waited in the living room of the Williams' home. Mrs. Williams was personally acquainted with one of the officers and testified that she had no fear of them. The circuit judge found This finding is amply supported by the evidence and, in this law case, is conclusive on appeal.
Williams assigns two more grounds of error in the admission of the insurance policy. First, he denies any right in his wife to waive his protection against unreasonable search. Since the trial court found that no search occurred, this contention has no basis. Second, the appellant characterizes his wife's conduct in giving the insurance policy to the police as a breach of this state's alleged 'public policy against permitting the wife of an accused (to give) evidence against her husband in criminal proceedings.' This contention, new on appeal, is without substance. Section...
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