State v. Hartley

Sanders, Chief Judge

(concurring):

Even if properly requested, I do not think a trial judge should charge, in a murder case, that the absence of a motive should be considered in deciding the question of guilt.

The most brutal murders, like the murder in this case, are commonly committed without an apparent motive. Indeed, the absence of a motive is sometimes what makes them seem brutal. The homicide detective’s Holy Trinity, i.e., the three things that solve murders, are physical evidence, witnesses and confessions. The experienced investigator ignores motivation. Agatha Christie, and her ilk, would have us believe that to catch a murderer, the motive must first be established. In real life, however, unlike on the Orient Express, a known motive is often beside the point. Ignore the why, the homicide detective will tell you. Find out the how, and nine times out of ten, it will give you the who. D. Simon, Homicide (1991).¹ Unfortunately, this concept goes against the grain. Popular literature, like that of Agatha Christie, has led us to believe that proof of a motive is critical. Fortunately, the law of South Carolina has always taken a more realistic view.

In this State, it is well settled that motive is not an element of murder and, therefore the State need not prove motive. State v. Thrailkill, 73 S.C. 314, 53 S.E. 482 (1906). To charge a jury that the absence of a motive should be considered in deciding guilt has the practical effect of requiring the State to prove motive or risk hopelessly imperiling its case. Such a charge seems to me both contrary to the settled principle of law and wholly unrealistic in terms of how the guilt of a defendant should be decided.

1 See Monahan & Walker, Social Authority: Obtaining, Evaluating, and Establishing Social Science in Law, 134 U. Pa. L. Rev. 477 (1986) (proposing that courts treat social science the way they would legal precedent under the common law).