Clark v. State

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

Joey Lynn Clark, Petitioner,

v.

State of South Carolina, Respondent.

Appellate Case No. 2018-001627

Appeal From Cherokee County
Grace Gilchrist Knie, Circuit Court Judge

Unpublished Opinion No. 2023-UP-353
Submitted December 5, 2022 – Filed November 1, 2023

AFFIRMED

Appellate Defender Kathrine Haggard Hudgins, of
Columbia, for Petitioner.

Attorney General Alan McCrory Wilson, Senior
Assistant Deputy Attorney General Megan Harrigan
Jameson, and Assistant Attorney General Johnny Ellis
James, all of Columbia, for Respondent.

PER CURIAM: This Court granted certiorari to review the post-conviction relief
(PCR) court's finding that Petitioner failed to prove his trial counsel was
ineffective for "opening the door" to the admission of statements of five jailhouse
informants who did not testify at trial. We affirm.
Joey Clark was charged with the murder of Winter Wingard. During the trial,
counsel cross-examined Detective Richard Burgess regarding Clark's statements to
these various informants, focusing on the inconsistencies among the statements and
the fact that Detective Burgess failed to investigate whether the initial jailhouse
informant was in any way credible. Counsel also elicited an admission from
Detective Burgess that another purported jailhouse informant gave a statement
wildly inconsistent with the physical evidence collected by the State. The State
ultimately introduced these written statements into evidence, but did not call any of
the informants to testify. During the PCR hearing, counsel testified he opened the
door to the comments because he believed it was beneficial to the defense to point
out the informants' statements were all inconsistent with each other. He also
asserted he specifically chose to discuss these statements during Detective
Burgess's testimony because he believed the detective was a weak witness and he
hoped to deter the State from calling the informants to testify.

We hold the PCR court did not err by finding Clark failed to prove he was
prejudiced by trial counsel's alleged error. See Sellner v. State, 416 S.C. 606, 610,
787 S.E.2d 525, 527 (2016) (holding a reviewing court "will uphold [the factual
findings of the PCR court] if there is any evidence of probative value to support
them"); Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694 (stating that to prove prejudice, a PCR
applicant "must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for [trial]
counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been
different"). The State presented extensive evidence of Clark's guilt, including
DNA evidence recovered from Victim's body and fibers collected from the crime
scene. Thus, evidence supports the PCR court's finding that Clark failed to
demonstrate a reasonable probability that the results of his trial would have been
different had trial counsel chosen not to open the door to the admission of the
conflicting statements by cross-examining Detective Burgess about the statements'
inconsistencies and the detective's failure to investigate the jailhouse witnesses'
many credibility problems.

AFFIRMED. 1

GEATHERS and MCDONALD, JJ., and HILL, AJ., concur.

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