State v. Heyward

441 S.C. 484

895 S.E.2d 658

The STATE, Respondent,

v.James HEYWARD, Petitioner.

Appellate Case No. 2021-000122

Opinion No. 28182

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Heard May 17, 2023

Filed October 5, 2023

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS

Appeal from Richland County, R. Knox McMahon, Circuit Court Judge

Madison Claire Healy, of K&L Gates LLP, of Raleigh; Tara C. Sullivan and Jennifer Hess Thiem, of K&L Gates LLP, of Charleston; Chief Appellate Defender Robert Michael Dudek, of Columbia, all for Petitioner.

Attorney General Alan McCrory Wilson, Assistant Attorney General William Joseph Maye, Deputy Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka, Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Melody Jane Brown, Solicitor Byron E. Gipson, of Columbia, all for Respondent.

JUSTICE FEW:

James Heyward was convicted of multiple crimes arising) from the armed robbery, brutal beating, and murder of Alice Tollison during the burglary of her home. We granted Heyward’s petition for a writ of certiorari to address the trial court’s refusal to remove Heyward’s leg shackles during the striking of the jury, and four evidentiary issues. As to three of the evidentiary issues—the authentication, of a fingerprint card, the admission of gruesome autopsy photographs, and the State’s use of Heyward’s alias—we find the trial court acted within its discretion. As to the other evidentiary issue—a firearms expert’s testimony Heyward’s pistol was operational at the time of the crimes—we affirm the court of appeals’ ruling that if there was any error in the admission of that testimony it did not prejudice Heyward. As to the leg shackles, we find the trial court erred in failing to exercise its discretion in determining whether Heyward should be required to wear leg shackles in the presence of the jury. However, because the State conclusively proved Heyward’s guilt through overwhelming evidence such that no rational conclusion could have been reached other, than Heyward is guilty of these crimes, we nevertheless affirm.

I. Facts and Procedural History

On Sunday October 11, 2015, Tollison and her granddaughter—then eight years old—went to church, returned to Tollison’s home, and began watching television. When they heard a knock at the door, Tollison went to answer it. According to the granddaughter’s testimony at trial, the granddaughter stayed on the couch for a few minutes before going into the kitchen "to get some of my toys." In the kitchen, she found Tollison sitting at the table, and a man told the granddaughter to sit across the table from her. The man was carrying a duffel bag, and the granddaughter saw him take out a pistol, place it on the kitchen table, and demand money from Tollison. After Tollison refused to give the man any money, the man strangled her grandmother to unconsciousness while she watched. The man then ordered the granddaughter to go into a closet and shut the door. While she was in the closet, she heard the man rummaging through the house. He returned to the closet, moved her to another room, and tied her arms and legs with electrical cords. The man eventually left the house, taking with him items of Tollison’s personal property. The granddaughter testified she struggled to free herself for approximately thirty minutes and fell asleep. When she awoke, she was able to loosen the cords enough to reach the kitchen and call 9-1-1. When officers arrived, Tollison was dead.

Initially, officers investigating the crimes did not have a suspect. A fingerprint expert with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department—Investigator Trisha Odom—found fingerprints at the crime scene and had them uploaded into the FBI’s Automated, Fingerprint Identification System—commonly referred to as AFIS—to search for a match. That search returned a match for James Heyward from a finger- print card entered into AFIS from New Jersey. Based on this match, officers included a picture of Heyward in a photographic lineup shown to the granddaughter. The granddaughter identified Heyward as the man who robbed and murdered her grandmother.

Officers soon arrested Heyward for the crimes and took his fingerprints when they booked him into jail. Investigator Odom compared fingerprints taken from him at the time of his arrest—the "booking prints"—to the prints found at the crime scene. From that comparison, Odom concluded the crime scene prints belonged to Heyward. Odom testified she also compared the New Jersey prints to the booking prints and crime scene prints and found all three sets of prints to match.

Other investigators collected DNA samples from scrapings underneath Tollison’s fingernails, the skin of her neck, and several other places. A DNA expert testified the DNA under Tollison’s fingernails and on her neck matched James Heyward to a high degree of certainty.

During the striking of the jury, Heyward’s counsel asked the trial court to remove the shackles from around Heyward’s lower legs because—counsel told the court—the shackles were visible to the jury pool. The trial court responded without discussion, "AH right. That motion is denied."

The jury found Heyward guilty of murder, burglary in the first degree, armed robbery, two counts of kidnapping, assault and battery in the first degree, pointing and presenting a firearm, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a crime of violence. The trial court sentenced, Heyward to life in prison for both murder and burglary, and an additional seventy years for the other crimes consecutive to the life sentences. The court of appeals affirmed. State v. Heyward, 432 S.C. 296, 852 S.E.2d 452 (Ct. App. 2020).

II. Analysis

We will address the five substantive issues in this section and whether any error warrants a new trial in section III.

A. Leg Shackles

[1, 2] "The law has long, forbidden routine use of visible shackles during [a jury trial]; it permits a State to shackle a criminal defendant only in the presence of a special need." Deck v. Missouri, 544 U.S. 622, 626, 125 S. Ct. 2007, 2010, 161 L. Ed. 2d 953, 960 (2005); see also id. ("This rule has deep roots in the common law." (citing 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 317 (1769))). As the Deck Court stated, "Visible shackling undermines the presumption of innocence and the related fairness of the factfinding process." 544 U.S. at 630, 125 S. Ct. at 2013, 161 L. Ed. 2d at 963. Thus, American trial courts long ago "settled virtually without exception on a basic rule embodying notions of fundamental fairness: Trial courts may … shackle defendants … only if there is a particular reason to do so." 544 U.S. at 627, 125 S. Ct. at 2011, 161 L. Ed. 2d at 961; see also Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U.S. 560, 568-69, 106 S. Ct. 1340, 1345-46, 89 L. Ed. 2d 525, 534 (1986) (observing that "shackling" a defendant during a jury trial is an "inherently prejudicial practice that … should be permitted only where justified by an essential state interest specific to each trial").¹

This Court addressed whether "the shackling of appellant violate[s] his [constitutional] rights" in State v. Tucker, 320 S.C. 206, 209, 464 S.E.2d 105, 107 (1995). After first finding the trial court in that case articulated a valid reason for requiring the defendant be shackled, we explained the trial court acted within its discretion in balancing the prejudicial effects of shackling against the valid State interest in having the defendant shackled. First, the trial court made sure the defendant’s shackles "were not visible to the jury." Id. We further explained,

Throughout the trial, the judge ensured appellant was sitting at the defense table or on the stand prior to the jury’s entrances and exits into the courtroom.

The trial judge took precautions to minimize any prejudice the restraints might have caused throughout the trial and offered to give a curative instruction to explain appellant’s failure to stand when the judge entered and exited thecourtroom. Balancing the effect of the restraints and the need for security, the trial judge did not err in restraining appellant based upon appellant’s prior history of escapes and his resistance to arrest.

320 S.C. at 209-10, 464 S.E.2d at 107.

[3] This careful balancing of the competing interests—and articulation of the balancing on the record for the benefit of appellate courts—is necessary to honor the defendant’s due process rights whenever the State seeks to restrain the defendant in the jury’s presence. In United States v. Samuel, 431 F.2d 610 (4th Cir. 1970), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held, "Whenever unusual visible security measures in jury cases are to be employed, we will require the district judge to state for the record, out of the presence of the jury, the reasons therefor and give counsel an opportunity to comment thereon, as well as to persuade him that such measures are unnecessary." 431 F.2d at 615. Similarly, the Supreme Court of the United States recognized the necessity the trial court "s[ee] the matter as one calling for discretion," Deck, 544 U.S. at 634, 125 S. Ct. at, 2015, 161 L. Ed. 2d at 966, and refused to sanction the "discretionary" use of shackles when the trial court did not articulate a valid reason for them and "did [not] explain why, if shackles were necessary, he chose not to provide for shackles that the jury could not see," 544 U.S. at 634-35, 125 S. Ct. at 2015, 161 L. Ed. 2d at 966. This Court required balancing of the competing interests in Tucker, stating, "The trial judge is to balance the prejudicial effect of shackling with the considerations of courtroom deco-rum and security." 320 S.C. at 209, 464 S.E.2d at 107 (citing Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 343, 90 S. Ct. 1057, 1061, 25 L. Ed. 2d 353, 359 (1970)).

[4] Thus, a defendant in a criminal trial may not be required to wear handcuffs, leg shackles, or other restraints in the presence of the jury unless the trial court makes specific findings on the record as to the particular reasons the restraints...