Lingard v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of South Carolina
• Decided: July 3, 2013
• Docket: 2013-UP-305
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

THIS OPINION HAS NO PRECEDENTIAL VALUE. IT SHOULD NOT BE CITED OR RELIED ON AS PRECEDENT IN ANY PROCEEDING EXCEPT AS PROVIDED BY RULE 268(d)(2), SCACR.

THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA In The Court of Appeals

Damian Lingard, Petitioner,

v.

State of South Carolina, Respondent.

Appellate Case No. 2010-162426

Appeal From Charleston County Roger M. Young, Circuit Court Judge

Unpublished Opinion No. 2013-UP-305 Submitted June 1, 2013 – Filed July 3, 2013

AFFIRMED

Appellate Defender Elizabeth Anne Franklin-Best, of Columbia, for Petitioner.

Attorney General Alan McCrory Wilson, Chief Deputy Attorney General John W. McIntosh, Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Salley W. Elliott, and Assistant Attorney General Matthew J. Friedman, all of Columbia, for Respondent. PER CURIAM: Petitioner seeks a writ of certiorari from the denial of his application for post-conviction relief (PCR). Because there is sufficient evidence to support the PCR judge's finding Petitioner did not knowingly and intelligently waive his right to a direct appeal, we grant certiorari and proceed with a review of the direct appeal issue pursuant to Davis v. State, 288 S.C. 290, 342 S.E.2d 60 (1986).

Petitioner appeals his convictions of kidnapping and armed robbery, arguing the trial court erred in admitting evidence of the two guns found inside Petitioner's home. We affirm pursuant to Rule 220(b), SCACR, and the following authorities: State v. Funderburk, 367 S.C. 236, 239, 625 S.E.2d 248, 249 (Ct. App. 2006) ("The admission of evidence is within the discretion of the trial court and will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion." (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)); State v. Aleksey, 343 S.C. 20, 35, 538 S.E.2d 248, 256 (2000) ("The trial [court] is given broad discretion in ruling on questions concerning the relevancy of evidence, and [its] decision will be reversed only if there is a clear abuse of discretion."); Rule 401, SCRE ("'Relevant evidence' means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence."); Rule 402, SCRE ("All relevant evidence is admissible, except as otherwise provided by the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of South Carolina, statutes, these rules, or by other rules promulgated by the Supreme Court of South Carolina. Evidence which is not relevant is not admissible.").

AFFIRMED.1

SHORT, THOMAS, and PIEPER, JJ., concur.

1 We decide this case without oral argument pursuant to Rule 215, SCACR.