Court Opinion

ID: 9622943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:25:27.86521+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:50.030556
License: Public Domain

PLEICONES, J.:
I respectfully dissent. First, I cannot agree with the majority that the infliction of corporal punishment upon a child by his parent or guardian can never constitute legal provocation so as to entitle the child who Mils his abuser to a voluntary manslaughter charge, nor do I agree that evidence in this case demonstrates the dissipation of the sudden heat of passion as a matter of law. I would therefore hold the trial court committed reversible error in refusing to charge the jury on voluntary manslaughter. Second, I would adopt a prophylactic rule requiring that before police may conduct custodial interrogation of a child under the age of fourteen, he must first be permitted to consult with an interested adult. If he thereafter decides to waive his privilege against self-incrimination, I would require that the interested adult be present during the custodial interrogation.
A. Voluntary Manslaughter
When reviewing the trial court’s denial of a defendant’s request for a voluntary manslaughter charge, the Court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant, and affirm that denial only where “there is no evidence whatsoever tending to reduce the crime from murder to manslaughter.” State v. Knoten, 347 S.C. 296, 302, 555 S.E.2d 391, 394 (2001) citing State v. Cole, 338 S.C. 97, 101, 525 *580S.E.2d 511, 513 (2000). I simply cannot accept the majority’s rule, a rule unsupported by citation of authority, that the child-victim of a beating or other abuse at the hands of a parent or guardian, who .retaliates against his tormentor and kills him, is ipso facto guilty of murder. In this case, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to appellant, I would hold that a jury could find evidence of legal provocation giving rise to the heat of passion in the beating administered to appellant by his grandfather.
I agree with the majority that the facts in Cole demonstrated cooling off as a matter of law, especially since the defendant himself admitted that “he had enough time to get his head together.” I am unable, however, to agree that this angry, emotionally ill child “cooled off” as a matter of law in the ten minutes or so following the beating administered by his grandfather. In my opinion, it is for a jury and not this Court to determine whether appellant’s actions in retrieving the gun, returning with it to his room, loading it, and proceeding to his grandparents’ bedroom are actions demonstrating “cool reflection” and “methodical execution,” or whether, perhaps, these acts are consistent with a person acting under the “sudden heat of passion.”
In State v. Goodson, 140 S.C. 357, 138 S.E. 816 (1927) this Court surveyed the law related to “cooling off’ in reversing a murder conviction because the trial court refused to charge voluntary manslaughter. In Goodson, the defendant’s passion was incited on Tuesday afternoon and the victim shot and killed the next afternoon. The Goodson court cited these passages from prior decisions, with approval:
In 13 R.C. L., 790, we find:
“What constitutes ‘cooling time,’ as it ordinarily is termed, depends on the nature of man and the laws of the human mind, as well as on the nature and circumstances of the provocation, the extent to which the passions have been aroused, and the nature of the act causing the provocation, and therefore no precise time can be laid down by the Court as a rule of law, within which the passions must be held to have subsided and reason to have resumed its control. The question is one of reasonable time, depending on all the circumstances of the particular case; and the law has not defined, and cannot, without gross injustice, define the precise time which shall be deemed rea*581sonable, as it has with respect to notice of the dishonor of commercial paper. What constitutes reasonable time in a particular case is ordinarily a question of fact for the jury; and the court cannot take it from the jury by assuming to decide it as a question of law.”
In State v. McCants, 1 Speers, 390, the Court, in speaking of what is reasonable time for cooling, said:
“The standard of what is reasonable, is ordinary human nature; to be applied by the Court, if all the facts and circumstances be found by a special verdict, or to be applied by the jury in giving a general verdict. As to the reasonable time in which cooling should ensue after provocation, no precise rule can be given.”
In the same case, at page 391, we find:
“In all cases where the time of cooling may be considered, whether the time be regarded as evidence of the fact of cooling, or as constituting, of itself, when reasonable, legal deliberation, the whole circumstances are to be taken into the estimate in determining whether the time be reasonable. The nature of the provocation, the prisoner’s physical and mental constitution, his condition in life and peculiar situation at the time of the affair, his education and habits (not of themselves voluntary preparations for crime), his conduct, manner and conversation throughout the transaction; in a word, all pertinent circumstances may be considered, and the time in which an ordinary man, in like circumstances, would have cooled, is a reasonable time.”
State v. Goodson, 140 S.C. at 361-2,138 S.E. at 817-8.
In my opinion, the trial court erred in declining to charge voluntary manslaughter. State v. Goodson, supra. I would therefore reverse appellant’s convictions12 and remand for a new trial. Since the issue of the admissibility of his statement will most likely arise on retrial, I address the merits of that issue as well.
*582B. Admission of Appellant’s Custodial Statement
The majority declines to adopt a per se rule that a juvenile’s confession is inadmissible unless obtained in “the presence of counsel, a parent, or other interested adult,” choosing instead to adhere to the “totality of the circumstances” test for evaluating the voluntariness of a juvenile’s confession. In my opinion, appellant’s confession does not pass the totality test. Moreover, I would adopt the following prophylactic rule:
Before a child under the age of fourteen may waive his privilege against self-incrimination and submit to custodial interrogation, he must have the opportunity to consult with an interested adult and, if the child waives the privilege, to have that adult present throughout the interrogation. An interested adult means a parent or guardian whose interests are not adverse to that of the child’s, or an attorney.
While such a rule is not required verbatimet litteration by the Constitution, in my opinion it -will best serve to protect the interests of society, law enforcement, and the minor.13
As the Supreme Court explained in 1967,
The privilege against self-incrimination is, of course, related to the question of the safeguards necessary to assure that admissions or confessions are reasonably trustworthy, that they are not mere fruits of fear or coercion, but are reliable expressions of the truth. The roots of the privilege are, however, far deeper. They tap the basic stream of religious and political principle because the privilege reflects the limits of the individual’s atonement to the state and — in a philosophical sense — insists upon the equality of the individual and the state. In other words, the privilege has a broader and deeper thrust than the rule which prevents the use of confessions which are the product of coercion because coercion is thought to carry with it the danger of unreliability. One of its purposes is to prevent the state, whether by *583force or by psychological domination, from overcoming the mind and will of the person under investigation and depriving him of the freedom to decide whether to assist the state in securing his conviction.
In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 47, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967).
Moreover, the Gault Court, while not requiring the “interested adult” rule in the context of juvenile adjudication14 went on to hold:
We conclude that the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination is applicable in the case of juveniles as it is with respect to adults. We appreciate that special problems may arise with respect to waiver of the privilege by or on behalf of children, and that there may well be some differences in technique — but not in principle — depending upon the age of the child and the presence and competence of parents. The participation of counsel will, of course, assist the police, Juvenile Courts and appellate tribunals in administering the privilege. If counsel was not present for some permissible reason when an admission was obtained, the greatest care must be taken to assure that the admission was voluntary, in the sense not only that it was not coerced or suggested, but also that it was not the product of ignorance of rights or of adolescent fantasy, fright or despair.
Id. at 55, 138 S.E. 816.
I would apply the “interested adult” rule only to children under fourteen years of age. At common law, a child under fourteen is prima facie doli incapax. State v. Toney, 15 S.C. 409 (1881). The presumption that these children are incapable of committing a crime is founded “[o]ut of tenderness to infants — the ease with which they may be misled — their want of foresight and their wayward disposition.... ” Id. at 414. Even at fifteen, such “a mere child [is] an easy victim of the law ... 15 is a tender and difficult age for a boy ... [who] cannot be judged by the more exacting standards of maturity. That which would leave a man cold and unimpressed can overawe and overwhelm a lad in his early teens.” Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 599, 68 S.Ct. 302, 92 L.Ed. 224 (1948).
*584I do not doubt that a child of between the ages of seven and fourteen may be capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong, and thus capable of committing a criminal offense. The ability to distinguish right from wrong is not, in my opinion, determinative whether the child is capable of a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of his constitutional rights. South Carolina statutes, as well as court rules, are replete with examples where a distinction is drawn between children under fourteen and those fourteen or older. See, e.g., S.C.Code Ann. §§ 20-7-140 et seq. (minors fourteen or over may petition for custodial payments or an accounting, or designate a successor custodian under the “South Carolina Uniform Gifts to Minors Act”); §§ 62-5-410; -407 (minors aged fourteen years old and above may be considered for certain probate court appointments); § 20-7-1690(A)(l) (children aged fourteen and up must consent to their adoption); § 28-35-120(1) (legally purchase fireworks without a parent); Rule 4(d)(2), SCRCP (child under fourteen cannot be directly served with process); Rule 17(d)(3), (5) (child under fourteen, like an incompetent person, cannot petition for the appointment of his own guardian ad litem); cf. S.C. Const, art. Ill, § 34 (unmarried woman under fourteen cannot consent to sexual intercourse).
The law presumes that minors ax*e incapable of making certain decisions which carry with them serious legal consequences. See statutes and rule cited above; see also § 20-1-100 (persons under sixteen “not capable of entering into a valid marriage”); § 20-7-250 (in general, contracts made during infancy must be ratified in unity after “full age” to be enforceable). At issue here is the minor’s decision whether to “assist the state in securing his convictions,”- the consequences of which are at least as far reaching as the decision to marry or to enter a contract. In my opinion, it best serves the interests of society to require that minors, under the age of fourteen, whom the law in all other respects treats as it does incompetent adults, consult with an interested adult before waiving their privilege against self-incrimination.
Even if we do not adopt this rule today, it is my opinion that appellant’s confession cannot be said to be voluntary under the totality of the circumstances. The undisputed facts demonstrate that appellant, aged twelve, had received inpatient *585treatment for depression before coming to live with his grandparents. His prescription medicine had been changed, and there was evidence that his condition was deteriorating. On the day before the killings, appellant assaulted a young child, and on the day itself, appellant had been taken from school by his grandparents. An individual observed appellant that evening demonstrating bad behavior and an angry attitude. Later that evening appellant was “paddled” by his grandfather: ten minutes later appellant shot and killed both his grandparents.
Appellant then set a fire, took money, weapons, and his dog and left in his grandparents’ vehicle. The next morning appellant was found in the woods. During the day, appellant was befriended by Deputy McKellar and they spent the next four hours talking, eating and playing cards. Later that afternoon, about 3 p.m., McKellar took appellant to the police station after his status was changed from victim to suspect. At the station McKellar told appellant it was time for an adult conversation and explained to appellant his Miranda rights. Another officer entered the room, apparently assuming the role of the “bad cop.” McKellar asked appellant about a bible verse he had mentioned earlier, and the other officer asked appellant what his grandparents would think about his lack of truthfulness. At this point, appellant confessed.
Myriad factors are to be considered when reviewing the totality of circumstances attendant upon a minor’s waiver of his privilege against self-incrimination. While age is certainly an important factor, it alone is not determinative. In re Williams, 265 S.C. 295, 217 S.E.2d 719 (1975). However, according to one commentator, “Invariably, the cases that hold that age alone is not determinative of the effectiveness of the waiver [in the absence of an interested adult] have involved minors who were fourteen years of age or older, and most often sixteen or seventeen.” Davis, Rights of Juveniles 2d 175 (2006). Other factors which must be considered in determining the validity of a minor’s waiver include “intelligence, education, experience, and ability to comprehend the meaning and effect of his statement.” In re Williams, 265 S.C. at 300, 217 S.E.2d at 722(internal citations omitted).
Here, a twelve year old emotionally disturbed child with no prior experience with the justice system waived his rights *586approximately eighteen hours after killing his grandparents, having spent the night in the woods, the midday in the company of a sympathetic officer,15 napping occasionally, playing cards, eating, and talking before being taken to the police station where the atmosphere changed from compassionate care to interrogation. Viewing the totality of these circumstances “with the greatest care,”16 I am unconvinced that appellant’s decision to waive his privilege was knowing, voluntary, and intelligent. Upon retrial, I would hold the statement inadmissible because it was obtained without the advice and consent of an interested adult, and because under the totality of the circumstances appellant’s waiver does not pass constitutional muster.
I would reverse appellant’s convictions and sentences, and remand for further proceedings.

. While the grandfather’s actions supplied the legal provocation, it is unclear from the record, in the absence of appellant’s confession, whether he intended to shoot his grandmother or whether she was the unintended victim of appellant's "manslaughter intent” state of mind directed at his grandfather. Since intent is unclear, I would reverse and remand appellant's conviction for the murder of his grandmother as well as his conviction for the killing of his grandfather. E.g., State v. *582Gandy, 283 S.C. 571, 324 S.E.2d 65 (1984) overruled on other grounds Casey v. State, 305 S.C. 445, 409 S.E.2d 391 (1991).

. I believe such a prophylactic rule, much like that established by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), will ensure that waivers by children under the age of fourteen are voluntary within the meaning of the 5th Amendment.

. The present case, of course, involves the trial of a juvenile as an adult.

. I do not suggest that Deputy McKellar did anything improper.

. In re Gault, supra at 55, 87 S.Ct. 1428.