Court Opinion

ID: 9780804
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 02:55:43.08314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:14.090687
License: Public Domain

PIEPER, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the resulting decision to affirm. However, I would resolve the videotape issue on preservation grounds.
“In order for an issue to be preserved for appellate review, it must have been raised to and ruled upon by the trial judge.” State v. Dunbar, 356 S.C. 138, 142, 587 S.E.2d 691, 693 (2003). When the circuit court is acting in an appellate capacity, the appellant must raise an issue to the circuit court in order to preserve the issue. Rogers v. State, 358 S.C. 266, 270, 594 S.E.2d 278, 280 (Ct.App.2004). Moreover, to preserve an issue an appellant must argue the same grounds at trial as those he argues on appeal. State v. Smith, 337 S.C. 27, 34, 522 S.E.2d 598, 601 (1999).
During pretrial motions before the magistrate, Murphy moved to suppress the videotape because of a violation of section 56-5-2953 of the South Carolina Code (2006) by not recording all of the field sobriety tests, and Murphy also asked that the case be dismissed. On appeal to the circuit court, Murphy argued his charges should be dismissed based on a violation of the same statute; however, the remedy of suppression on the ground of not recording all of the field sobriety tests was never addressed by the circuit court. The circuit court did address Murphy’s issue about allowing a post-arrest video of the defendant into evidence, as well as the issue about the datamaster records. Murphy subsequently appealed to this court, basing all the issues on appeal on the court’s failure to suppress the videotape. Because some of Murphy’s arguments changed in part, the issue of suppression of the video for not fully taping the field sobriety tests, as opposed to dismissal of the case, does not appear to be properly before us. Just as a motion to strike evidence does *636not automatically preserve a request for a mistrial, a request for suppression does not automatically preserve a request for dismissal, and vice versa. Thus, I would not reach the merits of Murphy’s suppression issue on the field sobriety tests because the circuit court only addressed the issue using the perspective of whether dismissal was appropriate.
As to the remaining portions of the majority opinion on the post-arrest taping issue and the datamaster records issue, I concur with the majority.