Case Title: State v. Butler

Citation: 277 S.C. 543, 290 S.E.2d 420

Docket Number: 

State: south-carolina

Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

Date: 1982-04-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
277 S.C. 543 (1982) 290 S.E.2d 420 The STATE, Respondent, v. James Anthony BUTLER, Appellant. 21690 Supreme Court of South Carolina. April 12, 1982. *544 David I. Bruck, of S.C. Commission of Appellate Defense, Columbia, and O. Harry Bozardt, Jr., and John A. Nettles, Orangeburg, for appellant. Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod and Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen. Brian P. Gibbes, Columbia, for respondent. April 12, 1982. HARWELL, Justice: On March 11, 1981, appellant was convicted by an Orangeburg County jury of murdering Thakor Patel, of committing an assault and battery upon Ramila Patel with intent to kill her, and of unlawfully carrying a pistol. After finding that appellant committed the murder during the commission of a robbery while he was armed with a deadly weapon, the jury recommended the death penalty. The trial court adopted the recommendation and sentenced the appellant to death. This case consolidates the appellant's direct appeal and mandatory review of the death sentence. On October 20, 1980, during the armed robbery of their motel in Santee, South Carolina, Mr. Patel was killed and Mrs. Patel was wounded. Appellant was arrested for the crimes the following day. Appellant alleges several errors occurred during the course of his trial requiring the reversal of his conviction and sentence *545 of death. We agree and reverse the convictions, vacate the death penalty and remand for a new trial. Appellant argues that during the penalty phase of the proceeding, the solicitor injected his own personal opinion into the jury's deliberations, and therefore the resulting death sentence was not free from the influence of any arbitrary factor as required by S.C. Code Ann. § 16-3-25(C) (1) and the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We have determined that a solicitor's closing remarks should be governed by the following principles: Here, as in Woomer, the solicitor attempted to minimize the jurys sense of responsibility for appellant's fate by stressing that he himself had already made the same decision he was asking them to make. Although no timely objection to the remarks was made at trial, this Court will review the record in favorem vitae in a capital case. State v. Adams, S.C. 283 S.E. (2d) 582 (1981). We conclude that the solicitor's jury arguments during the penalty phase require that appellant's sentence of death be vacated. When a solicitor's personal opinion is explicitly injected into the jury's determinations as though it were in itself evidence justifying a sentence of death, the resulting death sentence may not be free from the influence of an arbitrary factor as required by S.C. Code Ann. § 16-3-25 (C) (1), and the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. State v. Woomer, supra; Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S. Ct. 2382, 65 L. Ed. 2d 392 (1980). Appellant also contends that the closing argument of the solicitor at the guilt phase of the trial was so prejudicial that it denied him a fair trial. Viewing the argument in the context of the entire record, we conclude that the remarks were improper. The solicitor's private decision to prosecute and the relative merits of this prosecution as compared to all other cases over the previous eight-and-a-half years were all matters which were not within the record and its reasonable inferences. State v. Linder, supra. Before the trial judge instructed the jury at the penalty phase, he accepted requests to charge from counsel. Appellant requested two charges concerning the possibility of parole from a life sentence. In the alternative, he requested the following instruction: The trial judge denied both instructions. We have determined that a "jury should be neither invited nor permitted to speculate upon the possible effects of parole upon a conviction." State v. Brooks, 271 S.C. 355, 247 S.E. (2d) 436 *548 (1978); State v. Atkinson, 253 S.C. 531, 172 S.E. (2d) 111 (1970). In State v. Brooks, we acknowledged that the courts of other states are in near unanimous agreement that ordinarily it is improper to instruct the jury as to the accused's parole eligibility. In State v. Atkinson, no instruction was given concerning the possibility of parole. During deliberations, however, the jury returned to the court room to inquire about the possibility of parole in the event of a life sentence. The jurors were told that the possibility of parole was of no concern to them and that they should not consider whether the defendant would or would not be paroled. If the jurors in this case had inquired about the possibility of parole, a similar instruction would have been proper. It was not improper to refuse the requested charges, however, in the absence of the jury's inquiry. The disposition of appellant's remaining exceptions is unnecessary to this decision. We therefore decline to address these exceptions. Reversed and remanded for a new trial. LEWIS, C.J., and LITTLEJOHN, NESS and GREGORY, JJ., concur.