State v. Commander

396 S.C. 254

721 S.E.2d 413

The STATE, Respondent,

v.Christopher Sam COMMANDER, Petitioner.

No. 27062.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Heard June 21, 2011.Decided Oct. 31, 2011.

Chief Appellate Defender Robert M. Dudek and Appellate Defender LaNelle C. DuRant, both of South Carolina Commission on Indigent Defense, of Columbia, for Petitioner.

Attorney General Alan Wilson, Chief Deputy Attorney General John W. McIntosh, Assistant Deputy Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka, Senior Assistant Attorney General Melody J. Brown, and Solicitor Daniel E. Johnson, all of Columbia, for Respondent.

Chief Justice TOAL.

Petitioner appeals State v. Commander, 384 S.C. 66, 681 S.E.2d 31 (Ct.App.2009), claiming the court of appeals erred by affirming the trial court's admission of expert testimony concerning the victim's manner of death and refusal to instruct the jury on the defense of accident. We affirm the court of appeals' decision as modified.

Facts/Procedural Background

On January 7, 2005, family members discovered Gervonya Goodwin's (Victim) mummified ¹ and partially decomposed body covered by a blanket and lying on a sofa inside her home.² Victim's family members and friends had not seen or spoken to her since November 29, 2004. A police investigation revealed (and numerous trial witnesses attested) that Petitioner stole Victim's purse, mobile telephone, and vehicle from her home, sent text messages from Victim's phone to her family members in which Petitioner pretended to be Victim alive and on vacation, withdrew money from her bank account, used her credit cards, made calls on Victim's behalf from her mobile telephone, and used that telephone number as a contact number for a telephone chat line.

At the time of his arrest in New Orleans, Louisiana, Petitioner possessed Victim's vehicle. After police officers gained entry into his hotel room, Petitioner admitted killing Victim.³ The arresting officers recovered items from Petitioner's hotel room that connected Petitioner to Victim, including her checkbook, driver's license, birth certificate, ultrasound image, OB–GYN appointment card, a medical slip bearing her name, car keys, and keys to another vehicle that police located in Victim's driveway. Trial testimony established that Victim and Petitioner worked together, lived together, and shared an intimate relationship, that Petitioner fathered Victim's unborn child, and that Victim tried to end the relationship shortly before she disappeared.

Petitioner's issues on appeal concern the testimony of two of the State's witnesses. Dr. Clay Nichols testified as the State's expert witness in forensic pathology.⁴ Dr. Nichols responded to the crime scene in his capacity as chief medical examiner for Richland County on the day Victim's body was discovered in her home, and subsequently performed an autopsy on the body. Dr. Nichols testified the autopsy did not uncover any evidence of violence or trauma to Victim's body or any other evidence of injury. A later toxicology report was similarly indefinite. However, using the anecdotal history relayed by officers at the scene, together with the lack of normal indicators of physical violence, Dr. Nichols opined that the cause of death was asphyxiation, which would not leave physical marks, and that the manner of death was homicide due to the suspicious nature of Victim's death. The following colloquy occurred when the Solicitor questioned Dr. Nichols about his preliminary findings:

Q. Did you come—after your examination and prior to getting the toxicology reports back, did you come to a preliminary conclusion as [to] the cause of death ⁵ in this case?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. And what was that, sir?

A. Given the fact that this woman died under suspicious circumstances, that the history I was given was that her—she was already in her house, no one had talked to her for a period of time, her car was missing, her purse was missing, there was some indication that somebody was sending text messages to family members indicating that the dead woman ... was still alive, this indicated an extremely suspicious circumstance, and I felt that we were dealing with a homicide.

Defense counsel objected to Dr. Nichols's description of the death as a “homicide,” asserting it constituted an opinion concerning a legal issue because “homicide” implies criminal culpability. Therefore, defense counsel argued, Dr. Nichols's testimony concerning the cause and manner of death was inadmissible under Rule 702, SCRE, because it invaded the province of the jury. This prompted the trial judge to question Dr. Nichols outside the presence of the jury about the meaning of “homicide” in his line of work. Dr. Nichols replied:

A. Yes, sir. Homicide is someone who died as a result of the actions of another individual.

Q. As opposed to?

A. An accidental cause where somebody unintentionally caused death to another individual.

Defense counsel again objected to Dr. Nichols's reference to intent in his definition of “homicide” and asked the court to provide a curative instruction to the jury. Instead of providing a curative instruction, however, the trial judge allowed the State to proceed with the line of questioning, instructing counsel to question Dr. Nichols further, so that he could explain his definition of “homicide” to the jurors.⁶ This directive occasioned the following exchange in front of the jury:

Q. Doctor, what is your definition of homicide?

A. A person that has died as a result of another person's actions.

Q. And in your opinion in this case, was this or could this have been a natural death?

A. No, I don't believe so.

Q. Or an accidental death?

A. No, I don't believe so.

Q. Or a suicide?

A. No, I don't believe so.

Q. And that is your expert opinion?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. During the course of your examination, were there any signs of any kind of disease or anything else that could have caused her death?

A. No.

Q. And as to the cause of death, what was your opinion?

A. Once again, not stabbed, not shot, not beaten, not strangled with hands. And as a result of looking at the body of [Victim] and reviewing the circumstances of her death, I was looking for a cause of death that would leave no marks, no evidence of injury. And as such, I feel that [Victim] died as a result of asphyxiation.

Under cross-examination by defense counsel about the “suspicious circumstances” of the death, Dr. Nichols recounted autopsy procedures and the methodology he used in arriving at his opinion, and stated:

I believe [Victim] died of unnatural causes. And as a result of elimination [of other manners of death], and like you mentioned, the interpolation of the facts of the case, that being her purse is gone, her car is gone, the house is locked up and somebody went through an awful lot of effort to cover up this death,⁷ that I feel that [Victim] died as a result of homicide due to asphyxiation.

Finally, Dr. Nichols noted, “I'm not claiming intent. I'm claiming that [Victim] died as a result of somebody else's actions.”

Petitioner's “jailhouse lawyer,” John F. Presley, also testified at trial. He stated that Petitioner sought legal advice from him while both men were detained at the county jail. Presley testified Petitioner told him he admitted to arresting officers that he killed Victim and wondered whether his statements would impair his case. Presley testified that he and Petitioner had the following discussion a few days later:

[Petitioner] said, “What do you think if I told my attorney to tell them that she ... hit me in the head with a stick, we had an argument and she hit me in the head with a stick and I fell unconscious and fell on top of her, and when I regained consciousness she had died from being suffocated?”

And [Presley] said, “Well, no one is going to believe that.”

...

Well, either later that day or the next day, [Presley] spoke to [Petitioner] again. And [Presley] asked him the question, was [Victim] cheating on him, and he denied that she was cheating on him. And [Presley] asked him was he cheating on her, and he said he had friends like on the side, but it wasn't nothing serious.

And [Presley] asked [Petitioner] then, [Presley] said, well, what really happened then, you know, what really went on.

And [Petitioner] said that he and [Victim] had an argument, [Victim] hit him with a stick, and in other words he—she pissed him off and he fell on her and suffocated her.

And [Presley] asked [Petitioner] were you unconscious, and [Petitioner] said, no, he wasn't unconscious, he suffocated her.

...

[Petitioner] said that he wrapped her body in sheets and placed her body on the sofa somewhere in the house. [Petitioner] placed her body on the sofa and left her there. And [Petitioner] said he took her credit cards and her car. And [Petitioner] went to various states.⁸

Presley subsequently informed police that Petitioner admitted killing Victim.

Petitioner asked the trial court to instruct the jury on the defenses of self-defense and accident based on Presley's testimony. The trial court declined Petitioner's request, finding the evidence did not substantiate the charge. Instead, the trial court instructed the jury on the law of murder, voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter.

A jury found Petitioner guilty of murder pursuant to S.C.Code Ann. § 16–3–10 (2003).

Issues

I. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming the circuit court's admission of expert testimony concerning Victim's manner of death?

II. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming the circuit court's refusal to charge the defense of accident?

Standard of Review

“The general rule in this State is that the conduct of a criminal trial is left largely to the sound discretion of the presiding judge and this Court will not interfere unless it clearly appears that the rights of the complaining party were abused or prejudiced in some way.” State v. Bridges, 278 S.C. 447, 448, 298 S.E.2d 212, 212 (1982) (citations omitted). Therefore, in...