Court Opinion

ID: 9677640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:56:30.533312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:57.190575
License: Public Domain

Conley Byrd, Justice, dissenting. The record here shows that, at the time the notebook was introduced, (1) the three women and two men were traveling together; (2) they had spent the previous night in Oklahoma City; (3) the parties had no relatives in Oklahoma City; (4) the officers had been told that the parties were just on a tour; and (5) that some or all of the parties were then engaged in a larceny. When the above evidence is considered along with the fact that the parties had Alabama license tags on their vehicles, and stated that the women may have already left for Alabama, there is evidence from which one could conclude that some or all of the parties made the entries in the notebook. After all the notebook was found in a car driven by Catón, owned by Headley and in which the defendants admittedly had been touring, as distinguished from a vacation, for some time. Added to the above facts is the further fact that Caton’s initials appear alongside the notations. We have upheld instructions to the effect that a fact in dispute can be established by circumstantial evidence when its existence can reasonably be inferred from other facts proved in the case but that to do so the facts and circumstances must be consistent with each other and with the guilt of the defendant and inconsistent with any other reasonable theory. The facts and circumstances surrounding the possession of the notebook by the defendants lead only to the reasonable inference that the notebook was kept and the entries were made by one or more of the parties involved in the tour at the time of the theft from the K-Mart Shopping Center. To suppose that some one other than the parties involved in the K-Mart theft made the notebook is to me nothing more nor less than indulging in “imaginary doubts.” Other courts, State v. Hightower, 221 S.C. 91, 69 S.E. 2d 363 (1952), have permitted authentication of writings by circumstantial evidence. Since authentication is only an issue of fact, I cannot understand why the evidence here is not sufficient. For the reasons stated, I respectfully dissent.