Court Opinion

ID: 9851469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:13:12.692342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:56.919394
License: Public Domain

J. Frank Eatmon, Acting Associate Justice
(concurring).
While it appears that the reasons assigned in the opinion of Justice Stakes are ample to support the conclusions reached by him in this case I believe that it would not be amiss to add a few observations that I have gathered from the record which seem to more fully sustain such conclusions. No useful purpose will be served by restating the facts outlined in his opinion. The writer will content himself with referring to the additional points regarded as important and will repeat only such facts as are deemed necessary to make this discussion intelligible.
-The case here centers around the theft of a safe from the home of one Calvin Warren, Batesburg, South Carolina. It was later found hidden near Columbia in Kershaw County. The state contended that at some point after the safe was taken from Warren’s home the defendant placed the same in the trunk of his 1949 model Ford automobile and transported it to the place where it was later found. In this connection paint allegedly from the trunk of the automobile and from the bumper thereof was found which was supposedly scraped from the safe while it was being placed in or taken out of the trunk. An expert from the Federal Bureau of Investigation testified in this respect and identified the paint in the trunk and on the bumper as beihg the same as that on the safe. M. N. Cate, Identification Officer of the South Carolina Bureau of Investigation, testified without contradiction that he measured the trunk of the defendant’s automobile and also the safe in question. Such measurements conclu*427sively established that the compartment was sufficient to accommodate the stolen article. The latter testimony was corroborative of the other evidence that placed the stolen property in the defendant’s possession. If the measurements had shown that the compartment would not admit the safe this would have been some evidence that the defendant did not have possession thereof, as contended for by the State.
Several days after the theft defendant was arrested and incarcerated in the Lexington County jail. Immediately following his imprisonment, according to one of the witnesses for the state who was also in jail at the same time, the defendant was interrogated by1 another prisoner as to why he (Goodson) was being jailed. Discussion between the latter is detailed as the same appears in the record, to wit:
“Q. Tell us just what you know, from your own knowledge, your own, hearing, of the defendant here? A. Well, they brought him in. The other boy asked him what they had him (Goodson) for. He said, ‘Suspicion.’ He asked him, ‘What for ?’ He said, ‘Safe robbing.’ He asked him was he guilty. He said, ‘They haven’t proved anything.’
“Q. Said what? A. Said, ‘They haven’t proved anything.’
“Q. Go ahead. A. And he asked him something else, I don’t remember exactly what it was, now. Let’s see. He asked him, ‘Well, are you guilty?’ He said, ‘They haven’t proved anything.’ He said, ‘Are they?’
“Q. Said what? A. Said, ‘Are they going to prove anything?’ He said, ‘I’ll talk when I go to court.’ In other words, I don’t know whether anybody else was probably mixed up in it or not.
“Q. Well, what else; did he say anything else to you? A. He never said anything to me.
“Q. To the other fellow, that you overheard the conversation? A. Not too awful; I can’t quote it.
“Q. Said what? A. I say he didn’t say too much that— I mean, I can’t remember right now.
“Q. But you say he said he wouldn’t take the rap, is that right? A. Something like that.”
*428It is important to note that the defendant did not deny the alleged conversation with his fellow prisoner nor did he attempt to make any explanation whatever thereabout. Certainly the defendant was not under any compulsion insofar as his fellow prisoner was concerned at the time of this alleged conversation. While the conversation attributed to the defendant is susceptible of more than one inference such posed a question for the jury to determine whether the same inferred his guilt or innocence. The jury could have concluded that the evasive answers given by the defendant and his failure to unequivocally assert his innocence on that occasion was some evidence of his guilt.
The principal witness for the defendant on his plea of alibi was his young teen-age son who on the night in question engaged in a game of football at Hartsville. The witness testified that he saw his father, defendant, first at the home of his grandmother, then at the ball game, and later back at the home. The game started at 8:00 o’clock and was over between 10:00 and 10:30 o’clock that night. When the witness was pressed on cross-examination he was asked whether or not he remembered talking to Lieutenant Roy F. Williams of the State Constabulary and he replied in the affirmative. He was then asked whether he remembered telling Lieutenant Williams that he had not seen his father, defendant, that night until 10:15 o’clock, and to this he answered in the negative. At this point the solicitor asked the witness the following question, and received the reply quoted below, to wit:
“Q. You don’t remember telling him that, that you said that you did not see your father until after the game, between 10:15 and 10:30? Do you deny telling him that; yes or no? A. No.”
If the jury believed that the witness had made different statements on other occasions this would be a circumstance for them to consider as affecting the credibility of this witness and might have been sufficient to convince the jury that he was not telling the truth during the trial.
*429Witness Taulbee for the State testified that the defendant made threats against the prosecuting witness and against this witness between the time of his arrest and the date of the trial, apparently in an effort to keep them from testifying against him in the trial. Evidence that a person charged with crime procured or attempted to procure absence of a witness or to bribe or suppress testimony against him tends to show unrighteousness of defendant’s cause and a consciousness of guilt. McMillan v. Commonwealth, 188 Va. 429, 50 S. E. (2d) 428. It may be readily conceded that the witness made contradictory statements during the course of his examination and cross-examination with reference to such threats but it was the province of the jury, and not the province of the Court, to say on which occasion the witness was telling the truth. Certainly if the jury concluded that the defendant had threatened the prosecuting witness and this other witness these would be material circumstances bearing upon the guilt of the defendant.
All of the foregoing appear to be relevant links in the chain of circumstances that linked the defendant to the crime charged. The judgment below should be affirmed.