Title: State v. Francis

State: north-carolina

Issuer: North Carolina Supreme Court

Document:

471 S.E.2d 348 (1996)
343 N.C. 436
STATE of North Carolina
v.
Wilbur Waldrin FRANCIS.
No. 165A95.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.
June 13, 1996.
*349 Michael F. Easley, Attorney General by John F. Maddrey, Assistant Attorney General, for State.
J. Bryan Deans, Jr., Wilson, for defendant-appellant.
ORR, Justice.
During the evening of 19 December 1992, Willie Lee Howard, Jr., and Darren Stephone Hale were shot in retaliation for conducting drug transactions in the drug territory claimed by Avery Butts. Both victims died as a result of single gunshot wounds to their heads.
Defendant Wilbur Waldrin Francis was indicted for the 19 December 1992 first-degree murders of Howard and Hale. He was also indicted for robbery with a dangerous weapon and conspiracy to commit murder. He was tried capitally at the 3 January 1995 Criminal Session of Superior Court, Wilson County, and was found guilty as charged. After a capital sentencing proceeding, the jury did not find the existence of the sole aggravating circumstance submitted in each murder case and accordingly recommended sentences of life imprisonment. The trial court imposed two consecutive terms of life imprisonment. The trial court also imposed a sentence of fourteen years' imprisonment for the conviction of robbery with a dangerous weapon and a sentence of nine years' imprisonment for the conviction of conspiracy to commit murder, both sentences to run consecutively.
Defendant appeals to this Court, asserting that he is entitled to a new trial based on the two assignments of error he raised relating to his first-degree murder convictions. Defendant raises no issues with respect to the robbery and conspiracy convictions.
A complete presentation of the evidence is unnecessary to understand the legal issues raised in this case. In summary, however, the State presented evidence tending to show the following:
Howard and Hale sold crack cocaine in the claimed cocaine territory of Avery Butts. However, they did not work for Butts, and testimony tended to show that Butts was angry that Howard and Hale had been selling cocaine on his block. State's witness Andre Joseph, who was defendant's accomplice in the murders, testified that he was present when Butts informed defendant that he wanted Howard and Hale "taken care of" and that defendant's response was, "Okay." Joseph further testified that Butts later specifically urged Joseph and defendant to kill Hale.
Joseph further testified that on 19 December 1992 at approximately 4:30 p.m., he and defendant stood outside a Minute Mart convenience store located on the corner of Lodge and Banks Streets in Wilson, North Carolina. Defendant told Joseph that he was going to "take care of" Hale and Howard for Butts. Hale and Howard arrived, and Joseph asked Hale for some change, at which time Hale pulled out a large sum of money. Joseph testified that he wanted Hale's money and that defendant told him that Hale and Howard were "going down."
Further, Joseph testified that after retrieving an unloaded .38-caliber pistol, an unloaded shotgun, and a loaded .22 LR caliber rifle and after attempting unsuccessfully to find some shells, he and defendant waited at the convenience store for Hale and Howard, who had left earlier, to return to the store. Hale and Howard arrived and went into the store, and when they exited, defendant and Joseph followed them to an alley, where Joseph pulled out a shotgun. Joseph testified that while he was searching Howard, he heard defendant say to Hale, "Didn't I tell you don't move?" and then defendant shot Hale. Defendant told Joseph to shoot Howard, but when he refused, defendant shot Howard as well. Joseph testified that he only intended to rob the victims, that he did not know a shooting would take place, and that his shotgun was not loaded.
*350 Defendant's evidence tended to show that he and Joseph followed the victims into the alley with the weapons but that it was Joseph, not defendant, who was the leader behind the robbery and shootings. Defense evidence also tended to show that Joseph shot Hale and Howard.
Both of the issues raised by defendant on appeal arise from the trial court's admission of testimony by SBI Agent Jerry Ratley about statements made by State's witness Quentin Whitley during police interrogation on 20 December 1992. In his first assignment of error, defendant contends that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of Whitley's pretrial statement to Agent Ratley as corroborative evidence. Specifically, defendant argues that the statement Whitley gave to Ratley did not corroborate Whitley's testimony but was inconsistent with such testimony and therefore was improperly admitted as corroborative evidence.
State v. McDowell, 329 N.C. 363, 384, 407 S.E.2d 200, 212 (1991).
A review of the transcripts reveals that Whitley testified at trial that he observed "the two Jamaicans," referring to defendant and Joseph, retrieve guns. Whitley stated that Joseph retrieved a shotgun from behind a bush and that defendant retrieved a gun, which was in a paper bag, from behind an air conditioner. Specifically, Whitley testified on direct examination as follows regarding the sequence of events surrounding the shootings:
On cross-examination, Whitley testified as follows:
On redirect examination, Whitley testified that his memory of the situation was a little bit better when he gave Agent Ratley a statement than it was at trial.
Subsequently, the State called SBI Agent Ratley, who testified that on 20 December 1992, he questioned Whitley at the police department and that Whitley picked defendant and Joseph out of a photographic lineup. Over defendant's objection, Ratley was allowed to testify on direct examination for corroboration purposes as follows with respect to the statement Whitley gave Ratley during the police interrogation:
On cross-examination, Agent Ratley testified as follows:
A. No, sir.
Defendant contends that the trial court erred when it failed to sustain his objection and to allow his motion to strike the purported corroboration testimony of Agent Ratley when Ratley's testimony regarding the statement Whitley gave to him was in direct contradiction to Whitley's testimony at trial.
The first discrepancy concerns Ratley's testimony that in Whitley's prior statement, Whitley stated that he saw defendant shoot Howard. However, at trial, Whitley testified that he did not see who shot either of the victims and actually admitted on the stand under cross-examination that he did not know what happened between defendant, Joseph, and the victims. The second discrepancy concerns Ratley's testimony that in Whitley's pretrial statement, Whitley stated that two to three minutes passed between the two shots; whereas at trial, Whitley testified that the shots were not "long apart."
Defendant argues that these statements were admitted under the guise of corroborative evidence but were received as substantive evidence because the statements concern Whitley's observations at the crime scene and that Whitley's trial testimony reveals his uncertainty as to what happened at the crime scene between the victims, Joseph, and defendant. As we have previously stated, "a prior statement is admitted only as corroboration of the substantive witness and is not itself to be received as substantive evidence." State v. Stills, 310 N.C. 410, 415, 312 S.E.2d 443, 447 (1984).
We see no merit in the State's contention that the prior statements testified to by Agent Ratley add to the weight and credibility of Whitley's testimony. Giving due consideration to our prior holding that "`prior *353 contradictory statements may not be admitted under the guise of corroborating [a witness'] testimony,'" Burton, 322 N.C. at 450, 368 S.E.2d  at 632 (alteration in original) (emphasis omitted) (quoting Ramey, 318 N.C. at 469, 349 S.E.2d at 573-74), we conclude that Ratley's testimony regarding Whitley's pretrial statement contained significant discrepancies from Whitley's testimony at trial and should not have been admitted as corroborative evidence. Essentially, Whitley's testimony at trial was itself contradictory and therefore could not be corroborated.
However, "there remain[s] `plenary competent evidence ... from which the jury could have determined defendant's guilt of the crime[s] charged.'" Stills, 310 N.C. at 416, 312 S.E.2d  at 447 (alteration in original). Because defendant has shown no likelihood of achieving a different result at trial had Ratley's testimony concerning Whitley's prior statement not been admitted into evidence, we hold that the trial court's error is harmless. N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) (1988).
Prior to Ratley's testimony, Joseph, defendant's accomplice, testified, directly implicating the defendant in both murders. Joseph testified that defendant told him that he was going to "take care of the guys for Butts," and later, after he and defendant had seen Hale pull out a large sum of money, defendant told him that Hale and Howard were "going down." Joseph further testified that defendant gave him a .38-caliber pistol to hold while defendant went to get a shotgun. Butts, who was also at the store, left and returned with a .22 LR caliber rifle and then left prior to the shootings. After defendant returned with the shotgun, he and Joseph went somewhere to get some shells, but returned to the store without any. Joseph further testified that while he was searching Howard, defendant shot Hale. Then defendant demanded that Joseph shoot Howard, but after he refused, defendant shot Howard in the head. Joseph's in-court testimony was bolstered by Agent Ratley's unchallenged corroborative testimony regarding the contents of Joseph's 21 December 1992 statement to Agent Ratley. Finally, defendant's own trial testimony substantially matches the testimony of Joseph, as defendant admitted at trial that he and Joseph, with weapons, followed the victims into the alley where both Hale and Howard were shot.
This Court has previously applied the harmless error standard under N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) to determine whether an erroneous admission of a prior statement for purposes of corroboration entitled defendant to a new trial. In State v. Farmer, 333 N.C. 172, 424 S.E.2d 120 (1993), this Court found the evidence sufficient, if believed by a jury, to support a conviction of first-degree murder, concluding that "the defendant has not met his burden of showing a reasonable possibility that a different result would have been reached at the trial had [the witness'] pretrial written statement been excluded." Id. at 193, 424 S.E.2d  at 132. Additionally, in the case of State v. Sidberry, 337 N.C. 779, 448 S.E.2d 798 (1994), this Court stated that where the witness'"pretrial statement contained significant discrepancies from his testimony at trial and should not have been admitted as corroborative evidence," "the error was harmless" because of the substantial evidence of defendant's guilt presented at trial. Id. at 784, 448 S.E.2d  at 802. In the instant case, we conclude that defendant has failed to show a reasonable possibility that, had the error not occurred, a different result would have been reached at trial. This assignment of error is overruled.
In his second assignment of error, defendant contends that the challenged corroborative evidence was improperly used as substantive evidence. Defendant argues that the trial court failed to adequately inform the jury in its limiting instruction on corroborative evidence as to the proper use of such evidence. "By definition, a prior statement is admitted only as corroboration of the substantive witness and is not itself to be received as substantive evidence." Stills, 310 N.C. at 415, 312 S.E.2d  at 447. Believing that the trial court's limiting instruction on corroborative evidence was confusing, defective, and misleading to the jury, defendant asserts that the trial court's instruction was "sufficiently vague as to make the proper execution of the instruction unlikely or impossible."
*354 The trial court gave the following limiting instruction to the jury:
This instruction substantially comports with the instruction reviewed and approved in State v. Detter, 298 N.C. 604, 631, 260 S.E.2d 567, 586 (1979), and is virtually identical to the instruction recently reviewed by this Court in State v. Williams, 341 N.C. 1, 11, 459 S.E.2d 208, 214 (1995), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S. Ct. 945, 133 L. Ed. 2d 870 (1996). We held in Williams that the instruction was proper, stating that "[i]t is well established that in the absence of a special request, it is not error for the trial judge to fail to explain in his charge to the jury the difference between corroborative evidence and substantive evidence." Id. at 13, 459 S.E.2d  at 215.
Here, the purpose for which the jury could consider the evidence was adequately explained to the jury, and defendant made no special request for further instructions. Id. We believe that the limiting instruction given is such that reasonable minds could glean the proper use of the prior statement made by Whitley to Agent Ratley even in the absence of working definitions of substantive versus corroborative evidence. This assignment of error is overruled.
Thus, after reviewing the transcripts, record, and briefs, we find no error in defendant's assignments of error, and, accordingly, uphold his first-degree murder convictions and sentences of life imprisonment.
NO ERROR.