Court Opinion

ID: 9845903
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:30:47.966207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:25.683032
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice TOAL,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the trial court did not err in admitting evidence regarding the victim’s prior leg injury. Furthermore, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the solicitor’s conduct during his closing argument rose to the level of a constitutional violation or otherwise requires reversal.
The relevant jurisprudence instructs that “the Constitution requires the jury to make an individualized determination as to whether the defendant should be executed based on the ‘character of the individual and the circumstances of the crime.’ ” Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 818, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991) (quoting Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 502, 107 S.Ct. 2529, 96 L.Ed.2d 440 (1987), and Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 879, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983)). Accordingly, it is well established that evidence which is probative of the defendant’s character is admissible in a capital sentencing proceeding. See State v. Gaskins, 284 S.C. 105, 124, 326 S.E.2d 132, 143 (1985)9 (quoting Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976), and citing Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983)). In my view, this practice derives from the command that the decision to impose the death penalty be based on who the defendant is and what he has done. In my opinion, the majority incorrectly posits that the evidence regarding the victim’s prior leg injury was irrelevant and mistakenly concludes that this evidence, if admitted improperly, prejudiced Appellant.
*225Of course, the evidence of the victim’s prior leg injury was clearly relevant to Appellant’s character. The State did not offer the injury as evidence that Appellant was guilty of child abuse, but instead, offered the injury as evidence that Appellant’s actions with his child, prior to his brutally murdering her, were occasionally reckless and callous. The majority’s bald assertion that this evidence is “arguably irrelevant” is unavailing.
Furthermore, assuming, as the majority seems to, that Rule 403, SCRE, required the trial court to exclude this evidence as substantially more prejudicial than probative, T fail to see how this error prejudiced Appellant.10 Although Appellant may be correct in that the circumstances of this possibly accidental injury could have been viewed differently by the jury through the “distorted lens of hindsight,” the trial court gave extensive instructions to the jury regarding this particular evidence, regarding evidence of character generally, and regarding the factors the jury was required to consider in deciding on the appropriate penalty in this case. As this Court has noted, it is the duty of the jury to take the law from the court in the case on trial and “[i]t must be presumed that they do so.” State v. Queen, 264 S.C. 515, 521, 216 S.E.2d 182, 185 (1975).
The majority’s finding of prejudice in this case is all the more remarkable given the brutal events which were the subject of this sentencing proceeding.11 The solicitor referred to the victim’s prior injury only once in his closing argument, remarking that it demonstrated that Appellant was not handling the victim “carefully” and “lovingly” two months prior to the victim’s death. As a notable jurist once stated, “[sjurely *226this brief statement did not inflame [the jury’s] passions more than did the facts of the crime.” Payne, 501 U.S. at 831, 111 S.Ct. 2597. Furthermore, in the final testimony offered to the jury before the court’s charges, Appellant himself requested that the jury sentence him to death for the murder of his daughter. In my view, Appellant has not demonstrated how any error the trial court committed in the admission of evidence prejudiced his case, and under these facts, I believe such a showing would indeed be a tall order.
The majority also concludes that three aspects of the solicitor’s closing argument require reversal in this case “because the [death] sentence was imposed under the influence of passion and prejudice in violation of S.C.Code Ann. § 16-3-25(C).” I disagree.
As a primary matter, Appellant did not contemporaneously object to the solicitor’s use of the black cloth and crib during closing argument. Thus, Appellant did not preserve any argument for our review as it relates to this conduct. See Varnadore v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 289 S.C. 155, 159, 345 S.E.2d 711, 714 (1986) (stating that “the proper course to be pursued when counsel makes an improper argument is for opposing counsel to immediately object....”).
As I explained in my dissenting opinion in State v. Burkhart, 371 S.C. 482, 640 S.E.2d 450 (2007), I believe this Court’s jurisprudence which suggests that § 16-3-25(C) imposes a separate standard by which this Court should judge the conduct of capital sentencing proceedings is misguided and mistaken. The soundness of my position as it would apply here is underscored by the fact that, when registering objections during the solicitor’s closing' argument, Appellant did not argue that the argument was improper under South Carolina's statutory law. Instead, Appellant argued that the solicitor’s arguments “were inflammatory” and “violated] the Eighth Amendment.” Perplexingly, the majority’s analysis begins by discussing the well-established constitutional guideposts that characterize capital jurisprudence, only to end with the naked conclusions that the argument was “overzealous” and in violation of a provision of the South Carolina Code.
The Eighth Amendment is violated when the decision to impose the death penalty is made in an arbitrary manner, or *227“out of a whim, passion, prejudice, or mistake.” Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 329-30, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985); State v. Copeland, 278 S.C. 572, 587, 300 S.E.2d 63, 72 (1982). Violations of the Fourteenth Amendment occur when something “so infects the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.” See Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 181, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986). A trial court is vested with great discretion in dealing with the propriety of a closing argument to the jury, and, on appeal, a reviewing court must view the alleged impropriety of the closing argument in the context of the entire record. State v. Woomer, 277 S.C. 170, 174-75, 284 S.E.2d 357, 359 (1981) (citing State v. Durden, 264 S.C. 86, 212 S.E.2d 587 (1975), and State v. Linder, 276 S.C. 304, 278 S.E.2d 335 (1981)).
When viewed in the context of the entire record, I do not believe that the solicitor’s comments so infected Appellant’s sentencing proceeding with unfairness as to result in a denial of due process. Regardless of whether the majority is correct in its assertion that the sole purpose of the solicitor’s “open season” comment was to inflame the jury, the relevant inquiry is whether the argument, taken as a whole, resulted in a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Likewise, I disagree with the assertion that the solicitor’s remark in which he expressed that he expected the death penalty requires reversal. The solicitor’s closing argument fills thirty-five pages of the record. I seriously doubt that either of these two comments, each filling only one line on separate pages of the record, permeated the sentencing proceeding with any degree of unfairness.
The majority cites two cases as examples of jurisprudence from this Court “rebuk[ing]” such an imposition of the solicitor’s personal belief into a capital sentencing proceeding. As 1 stated in my Burkhart dissent, these cases are but examples of a line of this Court’s precedent which is based upon what I believe is a skewed reading of § 16-3-25(C). Of course, the introduction of overly inflammatory evidence as well as arguments which impermissibly appeal to the passions or prejudices of a jury have the potential to violate the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments. Interestingly, the relevant federal *228precedent rejects a steadfast rule of reversal whenever “personal opinion” is injected into a closing argument in a capital sentencing proceeding. See Darden, 477 U.S. at 178 n. 8, 181-82, 106 S.Ct. 2464 (affirming, on habeas corpus review, a death sentence over the claim that the prosecutor’s remark that he believed the state had carried its burden to support such a penalty violated the Fourteenth Amendment). At least from a constitutional perspective, we have nonchalantly adopted a rule that the United States Supreme Court has rejected.
Affirming a conviction which follows an argument containing improper components is an unpleasant task. Appellant’s sentencing proceeding was not perfect, but few are. On the record presented for our review, however, I cannot conclude that Appellant’s sentencing proceeding was fundamentally unfair. Our jurisprudence unwaveringly provides that we are to presume that juries follow their instructions and that proper instruction of the jury by the court cures most errors. See State v. Ard, 332 S.C. 370, 386, 505 S.E.2d 328, 336 (1998) (citing State v. Pierce, 289 S.C. 430, 346 S.E.2d 707 (1986)).12 Instead of following this jurisprudence in the capital arena, I believe we have ignored it. We ought to be more dutiful and genuine in our analysis. The jury was instructed that it was the sole finder of facts in the proceeding; that it was to give Appellant every benefit of every reasonable doubt; that the burden of proof rested entirely upon the State; and that the jury was to make its decision dutifully, fairly, impartially, without passion, without prejudice, and without excessive emotion. I would presume that the jury followed these instructions, and I would find that the jury’s verdict calling for the death penalty was not imposed in violation of the Eighth Amendment. For the foregoing reasons, I would hold that even if the trial court erred in admitting evidence relating to the victim’s prior injury, Appellant has not shown prejudice to warrant reversal of his sentence. Also, I would hold that the solicitor’s closing argument was not so improper as to violate the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

. Overruled on other grounds by State v. Torrence, 305 S.C. 45, 70 n. 13, 406 S.E.2d 315, 329 n. 5 (1991).

. I note that such an assumption is odd given that we have said that an abuse of discretion occurs only when the trial court's decision is controlled by an error of law or where its order is based on factual conclusions that are without evidentiary support. Renney v. Dobbs House, Inc., 275 S.C. 562, 564, 274 S.E.2d 290, 291 (1981) (citing Stewart v. Floyd, 274 S.C. 437, 265 S.E.2d 254 (1980)).

. As the record reveals, in administering the beating which ultimately took the life of the four month old victim, Appellant slapped the victim with such force that his wedding ring left marks on the victim’s scalp, punched the victim, choked the victim, shook the victim, bit the victim with such force that it left an imprint in the victim's bone, threw the victim on nearby household furniture, and ultimately broke the victim's back across the railing oí the victim’s crib.

. Though not relevant to my analysis, Ard was overruled on other grounds by State v. Shafer, 340 S.C. 291, 304 n. 12, 531 S.E.2d 524, 531 n. 12 (2000). Similarly, Pierce was overruled on other grounds by Torrence, 305 S.C. at 70 n. 13, 406 S.E.2d at 329 n. 5 (1991).