Update - The Final Benton Supreme Court Decision

In June, I had the privilege of working alongside some of the brightest legal minds in our state - Charleston School of Law alumnus Walker Humphrey , and fellow students Maeve Cavanaugh and Skye Martin - on the South Carolina Supreme Court Appeal of Mr. Tommy Lee Benton’s murder conviction.?

THE REFRESH

To get up to speed, you may find my first post on the Benton case here, and listen to the oral argument here.?

Back in the spring, I got involved with Mr. Benton’s case when his mother reached out to me after she listened to me share about Aunt Jane's work with Northwestern's Center for Wrongful Convictions.?

Side bar, for those interested in a brief history of the Death Penalty in Illinois, Paul Lutus wrote a fantastic article on the death penalty within the state of Illinois, and former governor George Ryan’s moratorium that ceased the continuance of capital punishment when it was uncovered that wrongfully incarcerated individuals were persistently being sent to death.?

It is a fact that, occasionally, the criminal justice system mistakenly puts innocent people behind bars. Here, we were not arguing for Mr. Benton's innocence - that is a job reserved for the trial court. Irrespective of an individual's innocence or guilt, however, equally as important is that public confidence in our criminal justice system remains steadfast. The rules which govern criminal procedure were designed with intent and purpose - both codified in statute and within common law.?

Inarguably, they should not be ignored or broken, and, when they are, it constitutes a violation of a defendant's rights to a fair trial.?

CASE CONTEXT

Back to the case at hand, again, Mr. Benton’s innocence was not the issue raised on appeal - that would be the job for a jury to decide - not attorneys. To the contrary, Mr. Benton’s appeal contended that the State erred in three ways, and as such, his conviction needed to be reversed in its entirety, or at the least, remanded for a new trial.?

1. First, by bringing the charges in a second trial after dismissing the first, solely due to the state’s own failure to adhere to the requirements surrounding his alibi defense. Specifically, we argued that this a constitutional violation of Mr. Bentons double jeopardy protection.?
2. Secondly, by admitting gruesome autopsy photographs of the victim's body in the guilt phase of Mr. Benton’s trial. Specifically, photographs that we contended were calculated by the State prosecutor to arouse the sympathies and prejudices of the jury with no relevance or necessity to the issues at trial. See, e.g., State v. Middleton, 288 S.C. 21, 24, 339 S.E.2d 692, 693 (1986); State v. Nelson 331 S.C. 1 (S.C.,1998).?
3. Third, by allowing a massive dump of thousands of messages into evidence, which we were not properly authenticated and therefore improperly admitted into evidence.

For context on point #2, in recent years, the South Carolina Supreme court has scrutinized the admission of gruesome autopsy photographs more and more closely. See State v. Torres, 390 S.C. 618, 624, 703 S.E.2d 226, 229 (2010) - "Today, we strongly encourage all solicitors to refrain from pushing the envelope on admissibility in order to gain a victory which, in all likelihood, was already assured because of other substantial evidence in the case."

Mr. Benton’s case, along with oral arguments for State v. Heyward and State v. Nelson, were heard within months of each other. All three of these cases raised their own respective issues, but one similar issue amongst them was a contention that throughout their trials, photographs were wrongfully admitted over objection by the judge due to an improper weighing/balancing of their prejudicial effect in comparison to their probative value. Heyward’s conviction was affirmed in October under “harmless error”, while Nelson’s was reversed and remanded for a new trial in August.?As such, no one knew what Mr. Benton's decision would look like.

"Winning" a favorable result in Mr. Benton’s case, as to the double jeopardy argument, would result in Mr. Benton’s conviction being overturned and for him to be set free with no subsequent trial.?

“Winning” on either of the other two issues raised on appeal would result in Mr. Benton’s conviction being reversed and remanded, at which point Mr. Benton would once again be tried in a subsequent trial with a new jury. Any of these results would be a success. With Heyward and Nelson opinions being published, Mr. Humphrey, Skye, Maeve and I were all eagerly anticipating the Supreme Court’s opinion, which was recently released moments ago.?

THE FINAL WORD

Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a favorable result. The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed Mr. Benton's conviction. When the opinion was released yesterday morning, immediately thereafter Mr. Humphrey, Mr. Benton, Mr. Benton's family, and the entirety of the legal team who work on his appeal consider what action needs to be taken next. While these next steps are being considered, a few take aways.

At the end of the day, as an attorney, you can advocate, you can persuade, you can learn, and you can vehemently disagree, but you ultimately cannot control the decisions of our courts.

In this lens, there is something positive to be gleaned from the opinion. That is that our appellate efforts caused the Supreme Court to issue a reminder to courts about documenting arguments and rulings.? While it doesn’t have much bite for the present case, I would gander that the Supreme Court won’t hesitate to cite back to this public reminder if another judge fails to act in accordance with it in the future:

• “There may have been some space for the trial court to have recessed the trial so the State could conduct a due diligence investigation of Benton's alibi disclosure, but given the skimpy record before us, we cannot say so without speculating. The transcript states an ‘off the record’ conference occurred before the trial court's ruling. The trial court should have held or memorialized these discussions on the record, a point we will discuss more fully in the next section of this opinion.” P. 4 (emphasis added).
• “In our review of the trial court's admission of the photographs, we note the trial court again did not place its Rule 403 analysis on the record. Instead, after an off-the-record bench conference, the trial court simply admitted the three photographs, commenting they were a "proper representation of the scene. "As we have expressed in the past, ‘we stress the importance of placing on the record arguments and rulings that took place off the record, whether during a bench conference, in emails, or in chambers.’ . . . We emphasize that on-the-record arguments and rulings enable judicial review and allow the parties and the public to better understand the rulings.” P. 5-6 (emphasis added) .

I couldn’t be more honored and privileged to have been a part of Mr. Benton's appeal.?The Charleston School of Law continues to provide ample opportunities for students like myself to gain real world, practical experience at the highest levels of judicial advocacy. I'm proud to be a student here, and hope to follow in the footsteps of alumni like Mr. Walker and take part in appeals through the appellate practice project like he has if afforded the opportunity to be a licensed attorney after graduation in May, and passing the bar in July, 2024.

As contemplation continues to occur as to how we can further pursue advocating on Mr. Benton's behalf, I remain excited and humbled by the opportunity to be of service with such an incredible legal team.