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State v. Miller6/28/2004
On or about 4:00 p.m. on the afternoon of October 5, 2001, a black male robbed the Alltel Communications store located on Floyd Baker Boulevard in Gaffney, South Carolina. The perpetrator entered the store with his back to the store's two female employees. As the man turned to face the employees, he pulled a black mask over his face, brandished a black handgun, and ordered the employees to fill a bag with money.
The two employees began filling the bag with money from one of the store's cash registers, when the man ordered one of the women to open the second cash register. However, the employees could not find the keys to the second register. While in the back looking for the keys, the man forced one of the women to open the store's safe. After finding the safe empty, the man told one of the women to keep looking for the keys to the register. Realizing they would not be able to open the second register, the man took both women into the back of the store and made them lie down on the floor. The employees lay on the floor as instructed until they heard the front door buzzer. Assuming the robber had left the store, the employees went to the front of the store, locked the door, and called 911.
The robbery lasted approximately ten minutes and resulted in a little over four hundred dollars being stolen. When police arrived on the scene, the employees described the robber as a black male who wore a blue shirt and dark pants. Sometime later, an individual was brought back to the store, and both women positively identified this person as the robber. One of the women testified, although the man never removed the mask during the robbery, they were able to see the side of his face as he pulled the mask down. Both women testified they never saw a car in the parking lot, but they heard a car door and assumed it was a customer coming in when the robber entered the store.
On October 5, 2001, shortly after starting his 4:00 shift, Trooper Johnnie Godfrey with the South Carolina Highway Patrol was traveling on Floyd Baker Boulevard near the Alltel store when a vehicle came from his right and cut him off. At this point, Trooper Godfrey testified that he turned on his blue lights and attempted to pull over the car for the purpose of issuing a warning for improper lane change and failing to yield the right-of-way. The car pulled into a parking lot, but failed to stop, instead exiting on another street and heading up the interstate toward Blacksburg. A pursuit ensued involving several officers, including the Highway Patrol and the Blacksburg City Police Department.
The pursued car left Gaffney and headed up I-85 toward North Carolina, sideswiping a car and turning off the interstate. A bystander testified that she observed the chase and as the car approached her, she saw someone toss a gun from the passenger side window. Officer Christy Poole of the Gaffney City Police Department searched the area where the gun was allegedly thrown and retrieved a black handgun.
The chase ended after the pursued car attempted to make a right hand turn and ran off the road and into a field. The two occupants then jumped from the car as it was still rolling, and fled. The driver of the vehicle was quickly apprehended and identified as appellant, Robert Miller.
Miller was placed in the back seat of Sergeant Mark Gooch's patrol car. Miller remained in the car for a period of fifteen to twenty minutes, while detectives and the crime scene unit responded to the scene. Sergeant Gooch testified that while en route to the detention center, Miller commented "I heard someone say something about a robbery. I don't know anything about a robbery. I wasn't even near an Alltel store." Miller also questioned what th
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