BY DAVID DONOVAN and RENEE SEXTON
ddonovan@sclawyersweekly.com rsexton@scbiznews.com
There are some obvious risks to admitting that you know where a dead body is buried, but a Dorchester County man who says that he never gave his informed consent before his attorney divulged that information to police will remain in prison after the South Carolina Court of Appeals rejected his argument that the confession should have been suppressed at trial.
Edward Bonilla admitted to killing a woman he’d met on a dating app in 2015, but contends that her death was an accident. After Bonilla was charged with murder, he told his public defender, Mark Leiendecker, where the body was buried. Leiendecker counseled Bonilla about the downsides of sharing that information with police, but advised that it would be essential to building a defense that the death was accidental.
Ultimately, Bonilla agreed to let Leiendecker divulge the location to police, who found the body. At trial, Leiendecker testified about what Bonilla had told him (Bonilla was provided another attorney after it became clear that Leiendecker would need to testify at trial). Bonilla failed to persuade the jury that the death was an accident, and he was convicted of murder. He appealed on several grounds, including the denial of his motion to suppress his statement to Leiendecker.
But Judge John D. Geathers, writing for a unanimous Court of Appeals panel in a Dec. 31 decision, disagreed, finding that based on the conflicting testimonies by attorney and client, the trial court properly found that Bonilla had given his informed consent.
Geathers wrote that, given the uncommon nature of the scenario, the court had little precedent to guide it, but the trial court had correctly relied on rulings from federal courts in other circuits that have held that even in cases in which the negative ramifications of disclosing incriminating information would seem obvious, a defendant’s consent to do so must be made on the basis of legal guidance and with full cautionary explanation.
Leiendecker testified that he’d had multiple conversations with Bonilla about disclosing the location of the body, described the benefits and explained the potential consequences of doing so, and advised that he didn’t think there was any reasonable alternative, given Bonilla’s defense. Bonilla remembered the conversations differently, but the trial court found that Leiendecker’s testimony was the more credible of the two, and so the appeals court found that the statements had been properly admitted at trial.
Geathers said that the court was limited in its ability to consider Bonilla’s argument on direct appeal because its review was limited by the evidence in record on appeal, and the argument would be best addressed in a motion for post-conviction relief based on ineffective assistance of counsel.
“This court’s review is limited to the testimony provided by Bonilla and his attorney, who took care not to reveal the substance of his confidential discussions with Bonilla,” Geathers wrote. “Without more information regarding what Bonilla and his attorney actually discussed, this court cannot find that the circuit court’s determination regarding informed consent was ‘clearly wrong.’”
Bonilla raised several other issues on appeal; the court rejected all of those as well.
Chief Appellate Defender Robert Dudek of Columbia represented Bonilla on appeal. Dudek said he sympathized with Leiendecker’s situation.
“Nobody could seriously argue that any lawyer put in this situation was not in a most, most difficult situation, and nobody should ever underestimate that, and nobody is trying to do so. I think that is important to understand,” Dudek said.
Dude said he is seeking a re-hearing of the case.
“The proper relief at trial would have been to exclude evidence or at least a stipulation being read to the jury that the defendant revealed the location of the body to his attorney, who then revealed the location of the body to the police. Therefore, we think that the court could provide appropriate or proper relief on direct appeal,” Dudek said.
Leiendecker and the South Carolina Attorney General’s office both declined to comment on the court’s ruling.
The 21-page decision is State v. Bonilla (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-103-19). The full text of the opinion is available online at sclawyersweekly.com.