Court: Court of Appeals of South Carolina; May 21, 2014; South Carolina; State Appellate Court
Clarence Williams Jenkins appeals his convictions for kidnapping and murder, arguing that the trial court's refusal to provide a circumstantial evidence instruction violated his right to a presumption of innocence. He also contests the court's decision not to strike the testimony of the State's fingerprint expert, asserting that the prosecution withheld evidence relevant to her testimony. The court affirms the convictions.
On April 7, 2008, Sue Bostic found a garbage bag containing a severed human foot and hand, along with a threatening note. Police collected the evidence and discovered a similar incident involving Judon Burnside. The severed body parts were processed, and fingerprints matched those of the victim, Mekole Harris. Jenkins and his wife, Carmen, were arrested on April 10, 2008, and later indicted for murder. The State sought the death penalty but withdrew it after Carmen agreed to cooperate with the investigation in exchange for a plea deal.
Jenkins was indicted for kidnapping on September 13, 2011. His trial occurred from April 9 to 13, 2012, where fingerprint expert Captain Jackie Kellet detailed her identification process using the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), leading to a match with the victim’s prints. Carmen Jenkins testified against her husband, detailing his alleged plans to intimidate a former housemate, Grace Davis, who had previously lived with them.
The Department of Social Services removed Davis’s children from her custody, stating she could not regain them while living with Appellant and Wife, prompting her to leave their home. Appellant expressed to Wife that Davis needed to return to their relationship for her knowledge of Appellant's organization, claiming that failure to do so would result in harm to all of them. Subsequently, Appellant executed a plan to intimidate Davis by sending threatening letters to her and her family. On April 4, 2008, Appellant brought home Victim, a prostitute, handcuffed her, and falsely claimed he and Wife were police officers who had arrested her for prostitution. He coerced Victim into aiding his plan against Davis by scripting calls to Davis’s family, which Victim recited while handcuffed.
On April 5, Appellant drugged Victim with a mixture of crushed medication in ice cream. The following day, he ordered Wife to kill Victim, leading to a struggle where Appellant ultimately suffocated Victim with a plastic bag. They concealed her body in the shower, and Appellant dismembered it, enlisting Wife's participation. The dismembered parts were stored in their freezer before they disposed of the body near a golf course. Appellant and Wife then left threatening letters and garbage bags containing parts of Victim’s body at the homes of Davis's relatives. DNA evidence linked the severed hand to blood samples found in their home and other locations, corroborating the events surrounding Victim's murder.
Jurors deliberated for over four hours before reporting to the trial court that they could not reach a unanimous decision on one charge against the Appellant. The court dismissed the jury for the night and provided an Allen instruction the following morning. After resuming deliberations for just over an hour, the jury returned a guilty verdict on both charges. The trial court sentenced the Appellant to life in prison, prompting this appeal.
The appeal raises three issues:
1. Whether the trial court's refusal to provide a circumstantial evidence instruction, as referenced in State v. Edwards, violated the Appellant’s right to require the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
2. Whether the court erred by not striking the testimony of Captain Kellet, the State's fingerprint expert, or granting a mistrial due to the Appellant’s counsel not receiving Captain Kellet's file before trial.
3. Whether the court erred by not allowing sufficient recess time for the Appellant to hire an expert to review Captain Kellet's file.
In reviewing jury instructions, the appellate court considers the jury charge as a whole, assessing whether it adequately covers the law. A charge is deemed correct if it is substantially accurate, and isolated misleading portions do not necessarily warrant reversal. The trial judge is required to present current and correct law, and a refusal to give a requested charge must be both erroneous and prejudicial to the defendant to warrant reversal. The circumstantial evidence standard established in Edwards stipulates that the jury can only convict if every circumstance presented by the State is proven beyond a reasonable doubt and collectively points conclusively to the Appellant’s guilt, excluding other reasonable hypotheses.
In State v. Grippon, the court established guidelines for jury instructions concerning evidence types in criminal trials, emphasizing that both direct and circumstantial evidence hold equal weight. Direct evidence includes eyewitness testimony, while circumstantial evidence consists of a series of facts suggesting a conclusion. The court instructed that if a reasonable doubt exists regarding the defendant's guilt, they must be found not guilty.
In State v. Cherry, the South Carolina Supreme Court mandated the use of the Grippon jury charge in cases involving circumstantial evidence, eliminating the "reasonable hypothesis" language from previous instructions, which could mislead juries into believing a different standard applied to circumstantial evidence. Following this, the court in State v. Logan reaffirmed and slightly modified certain aspects of the Edwards instruction, reiterating that all circumstantial evidence must converge to conclusively demonstrate guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It clarified that mere suspicious behavior does not satisfy this threshold.
Lastly, the court maintained that the burden of proof lies with the State, irrespective of whether evidence is direct, circumstantial, or a combination thereof. While trial courts can issue the circumstantial evidence charge from Grippon and Cherry, they must not do so exclusively if a defendant objects.
The Logan court determined that any error in the jury instructions provided by the trial court was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The court found that the trial court adequately instructed the jury on the reasonable doubt burden of proof and that the overall jury instruction accurately conveyed the law. In the current case, the trial court delivered a jury instruction explaining the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence, emphasizing that both types of evidence hold equal weight and that the jury should find the defendant not guilty if they are not convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The State argued that only the Grippon charge should have been used at the time of the appellant's trial, pointing out that the Logan opinion was issued while the appeal was pending. The appellant contended that Logan should apply retroactively, citing relevant precedents that mandate new rules for criminal prosecutions to be applied to cases under direct review. The court agreed that the Griffith decision requires the application of Logan to cases on appeal when the Logan opinion was published.
However, the court affirmed the trial court’s denial of the appellant’s request for the Edwards instruction for two main reasons: First, the requested instruction included language about a "reasonable hypothesis" that the supreme court has since deemed unnecessary. Second, any potential error from excluding certain language from the Logan instruction was considered harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, as the trial court's overall instructions sufficiently conveyed the relevant law. The court noted that erroneous jury instructions are evaluated under a harmless error analysis.
Clarence Jenkins has entered a not guilty plea, placing the burden of proof on the State to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court emphasized that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that reasonable doubt is defined as a hesitation to act that a reasonable person would experience. The court instructed the jury to resolve any reasonable doubts in favor of the defendant, affirming the correctness of this instruction per South Carolina law, as supported by case law. The trial court's overall instructions, including those on circumstantial evidence, were deemed adequate and did not warrant reversal of the jury charges.
In addition, Jenkins challenged the trial court's refusal to grant relief due to the prosecution's failure to provide Captain Kellet’s file related to the identification of the victim's fingerprints, arguing that this violated Rule 5 of the South Carolina Rules of Criminal Procedure. Jenkins contended that the lack of this evidence hindered his ability to impeach Kellet’s testimony, and sought to have her testimony stricken or a mistrial declared. The court clarified that Rule 5(a)(1)(C) requires the prosecution to permit inspection of materials relevant to the defense upon request. However, decisions regarding evidence admission and mistrial motions are at the discretion of the trial court, and such decisions are upheld unless there is an abuse of discretion or legal error. The burden is on the complaining party to demonstrate both the error and resulting prejudice for a mistrial or reversal.
To establish prejudice, the complaining party must demonstrate a reasonable probability that the jury's verdict was affected by the disputed evidence or its absence. In this case, the solicitor communicated with Captain Kellet about her file in relation to defense counsel's discovery requests and informed defense counsel of potential AFIS-related documents, which counsel declined to review. The defense team had been aware for four years that fingerprints from severed hands had been processed through AFIS. Despite having opportunities to visit the forensic division and access relevant documents, defense counsel did not seek to interview Captain Kellet or review the AFIS-related materials before the trial. Consequently, there was no violation of Rule 5, and the trial court's decision to deny the requested relief did not prejudice the Appellant since the identity of the victim was not contested at trial.
Furthermore, the Appellant's request for a recess or continuance to consult with an expert about the documents was denied, which the trial court deemed appropriate given the defense's prior knowledge of the fingerprint analysis. The management of a criminal trial is largely at the discretion of the trial judge, and such decisions are not overturned unless there is clear abuse of discretion. The Appellant’s convictions were affirmed.
The document also highlights the necessity of discussing the horrific facts of the case for context regarding the Appellant's arguments related to circumstantial evidence and fingerprint identification. The State contended that the Appellant did not preserve his argument regarding the trial court's circumstantial evidence instruction as a constitutional issue, although trial counsel’s references to recent case law likely indicated awareness of its constitutional dimension. Any uncertainty about preserving the "reasonable doubt" argument should favor its preservation for review.
