An unpublished opinion of the North Carolina Court of Appeals does not constitute 

controlling legal authority. Citation is disfavored, but may be permitted in 

accordance with the provisions of Rule 30(e)(3) of the North Carolina Rules of 

A p p e l l a t e P r o c e d u r e .

NO. COA13-1399

NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS

Filed: 17 June 2014

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

v. Pasquotank County

Nos. 10 CRS 001724-25, 051007

ANTONIO EDWARD WEST,

Defendant.

Appeal by defendant from judgments entered 19 March 2013 by 

Judge Wayland J. Sermons in Pasquotank County Superior Court. 

Heard in the Court of Appeals 5 May 2014.

Roy Cooper, Attorney General, by Danielle Marquis Elder, 

Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State.

John R. Mills, for defendant-appellant.

MARTIN, Chief Judge.

Defendant Antonio Edward West appeals from judgments 

entered upon jury verdicts finding him guilty of first-degree 

murder, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon with 

intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and possession of a 

stolen firearm. We find no error in defendant’s trial.
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On 12 June 2010, Dejuan1 Brown was shot and killed after 

shots were fired into a crowd at a high school graduation party. 

Earlier that day, defendant and his friends arrived at the party 

uninvited and were asked to leave. Defendant and his friends 

left, but returned to the party later that evening. Around 

11:00 p.m., a dispute arose outside the party. As the dispute 

escalated, a large crowd of people gathered. Shortly 

thereafter, shots were fired. Witnesses saw defendant firing

shots into the crowd. Shamon Green testified that defendant

pointed his gun directly at him. Green then took off running

and was shot in the wrist. When Green looked back to where he 

had been previously standing, he saw Brown laying on the ground. 

Brown died from a single gunshot wound to his head.

After fleeing from the scene, defendant flagged down Brian 

Johnson and asked him for a ride to the hospital because his 

friend had been shot and injured. Johnson drove defendant and 

his friend to the hospital and parked outside the emergency room

entrance. Security surveillance cameras outside the hospital 

recorded defendant helping his friend into the hospital. Less 

than two minutes later, defendant returned to the car. Johnson

then drove around to the side of the hospital where he parked 

 

1 The record variably refers to the victim as “Daquan” and 

“Dejuan.” For consistency with the transcript, we refer to the 

victim as “Dejuan” Brown.
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and got out to urinate by the side of the car. There were no 

surveillance cameras located where Johnson parked the car, but 

he noticed defendant step out of the car and dispose of a

balled-up shirt in a dumpster. Johnson later showed police

where defendant had thrown away the shirt.

Police searched a vat of used cooking oil outside the 

hospital kitchen and located two weapons, a .380 caliber Cobra 

handgun and a .380 caliber Hi-Point handgun, wrapped inside a

shirt. The guns and bullets found inside each were sent to the 

State Bureau of Investigation (“S.B.I.”) for analysis. In 

addition, the .380 caliber bullet recovered from Brown’s head 

during autopsy as well as several shell casings, including shell 

casings from a .380 caliber weapon that were found near where 

Brown was shot, were also submitted to the S.B.I.

The State also presented evidence tracing the purchase of

the .380 caliber Cobra handgun to Emanuel Jinks. The parties

stipulated that the gun was stolen from Jinks in 2009 by a man

who was incarcerated at the time of the shooting. A pawn shop 

manager and firearms dealer testified that defendant placed a 

special order for a .380 caliber Cobra magazine on 7 June 2010 

and the store’s records confirmed that defendant picked up the 

magazine on 10 June 2010.

S.B.I. Special Agent Jessica Pappas was tendered as an 
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expert witness in forensic firearms identification. Prior to 

trial, defendant moved in limine to exclude Agent Pappas’s 

expert testimony. The trial court denied the motion but further 

ruled as follows:

The Court, however, is going to limit the 

opinion of the expert to not allow the 

expert to testify that a match may be done 

to the exclusion of all other guns in the 

universe. The expert may testify, as was 

stated by the expert on the stand during 

this voir dire, that a bullet came from a 

particular gun to within a reasonable degree 

of certainty in the firearms examination 

field and any other language that describes 

what that field is, and what the reasonable 

degree of certainty is. I’m just not going 

to allow her to say that it is to the 

exclusion of all other guns in the universe. 

And that will be my ruling in this matter.

Agent Pappas testified that she examined the .380 caliber Cobra 

and the .380 caliber Hi-Point handguns retrieved from the oil 

vat outside the hospital, the bullet recovered from Brown’s

head, and the shell casings collected from the scene of the 

shooting. Based on her analysis, Agent Pappas opined that the 

.380 caliber bullet recovered from Brown’s head as well as a

.380 caliber shell casing found near where Brown was shot were 

fired from the .380 caliber Cobra handgun.

At the close of the State’s evidence, defendant moved to 

dismiss the charge of possession of a stolen firearm, arguing 

that the evidence was insufficient to establish defendant knew 
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or had reason to know that the firearm was stolen. The trial 

court denied the motion. The jury found defendant guilty of all 

charges. Defendant appeals.

_________________________

On appeal, defendant argues the trial court erred by: (I)

admitting Agent Pappas’s expert testimony, and (II) denying 

defendant’s motion to dismiss the charge of possession of a 

stolen firearm because the evidence was insufficient to 

establish that defendant knew or had reason to know that the gun 

was stolen.

I.

Defendant first argues the trial court erred by admitting 

Agent Pappas’s firearm toolmark identification testimony. 

Specifically, defendant claims Agent Pappas’s testimony, which 

violated the trial court’s prior ruling, was unreliable and its 

admission violated defendant’s constitutional right to be tried 

based on reliable evidence. We disagree.

Contrary to defendant’s assertion, Agent Pappas’s testimony 

did not violate the trial court’s ruling limiting her testimony. 

After voir dire examination of Agent Pappas, the court found the 

expert testimony reliable and denied defendant’s motion in 

limine to exclude the testimony. The court’s ruling only 

limited Agent Pappas from testifying that a bullet was fired 
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from a particular gun to the exclusion of all others. Our 

review of the record reveals that Agent Pappas opined, based on 

her analysis, that the bullet recovered from Brown’s head and a 

shell casing retrieved from the scene of the shooting were fired

from the .380 caliber Cobra handgun. Agent Pappas did not 

testify, as defendant contends, that “[defendant’s] gun was the 

only gun in the world that could have been the source of the 

bullet and casing.” Agent Pappas’s testimony, therefore, did 

not violate the trial court’s narrow limitation on the 

testimony.

A trial court’s decision to allow expert testimony will not 

be reversed on appeal absent an abuse of discretion. State v. 

Morgan, 359 N.C. 131, 160, 604 S.E.2d 886, 904 (2004), cert. 

denied, 546 U.S. 830, 163 L. Ed. 2d 79 (2005).

To determine if proffered expert testimony 

is admissible under North Carolina Rule of 

Evidence 702, a trial court must conduct a 

three-step inquiry to ascertain whether: 

(1) the expert’s method of proof is 

reliable; (2) the witness presenting the 

evidence qualifies as an expert; and (3) the 

evidence is relevant.

State v. Britt, 217 N.C. App. 309, 313–14, 718 S.E.2d 725, 729 

(2011). Here, defendant only challenges the reliability of 

Agent Pappas’s testimony.

A trial court should first look to precedent for guidance 
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in determining whether the method of proof underlying an 

expert’s opinion is reliable. Howerton v. Arai Helmet, Ltd., 

358 N.C. 440, 459, 597 S.E.2d 674, 687 (2004). Once the trial 

court determines the expert’s method of proof is reliable, “any 

lingering questions or controversy concerning the quality of the 

expert’s conclusions go to the weight of the testimony rather 

than its admissibility.” Id. at 461, 597 S.E.2d at 688. It is 

well settled that firearm toolmark identification is recognized 

as a reliable method of proof as “[c]ourts in North Carolina 

have upheld the admission of expert testimony on firearm 

toolmark identification for decades.” Britt, 217 N.C. App. at 

314, 718 S.E.2d at 729.

Defendant concedes the reliability of firearm toolmark 

identification. Nonetheless, defendant claims Agent Pappas’s 

testimony was unreliable because firearm toolmark identification 

does not support her “conclusion that only [defendant’s] gun 

could have fired the bullet recovered from [Brown’s] brain.” We 

are unpersuaded by this contention. As we previously stated, 

Agent Pappas did not testify that only defendant’s gun could 

have fired the lethal bullet. Because precedent recognizes the 

reliability of firearm toolmark identification, defendant’s 

argument as to Agent Pappas’s conclusions goes to the weight of 

the testimony and not its admissibility. We therefore conclude 
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that the trial court properly followed precedent and did not 

abuse its discretion in admitting the expert testimony. This 

disposition renders our consideration of defendant’s remaining 

argument regarding the admission of the expert testimony

unnecessary.

II.

Defendant next contends the evidence presented was 

insufficient to support a conviction for possession of a stolen 

firearm because defendant purchased the gun from a firearms

dealer shortly before the shooting and his disposal of the gun 

immediately after the shooting was insufficient evidence to 

establish that he knew or had reason to know that the gun was 

stolen. The State points out that the evidence showed that 

defendant purchased a magazine, not the gun, days before the 

shooting and asserts that defendant’s argument is foreclosed by 

well-established precedent. In response, defendant concedes his 

factual error and further concedes that under the authority of 

State v. Wilson, 203 N.C. App. 547, 691 S.E.2d 734 (2010), the 

evidence was sufficient to establish defendant’s guilty 

knowledge. We agree.

To convict a defendant of possession of a stolen firearm, 

“the State must present substantial evidence that (1) the 

defendant was in possession of a firearm; (2) which had been 
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stolen; (3) the defendant knew or had reasonable grounds to 

believe the property was stolen; and (4) the defendant possessed 

the pistol with a dishonest purpose.” State v. Brown, 182 N.C. 

App. 277, 281, 641 S.E.2d 850, 853 (2007). “‘Other cases 

upholding convictions when knowledge was at issue have contained 

some evidence of incriminating behavior on the part of the 

accused.’” Wilson, 203 N.C. at 554, 691 S.E.2d at 739 (quoting 

State v. Allen, 79 N.C. App. 280, 285, 339 S.E.2d 76, 79, aff'd 

per curiam, 317 N.C. 329, 344 S.E.2d 789 (1986)). “[G]uilty 

knowledge can be inferred from defendant’s throwing away [of] 

the stolen weapon, despite an intervening crime committed by 

defendant with the weapon.” Id. at 554, 691 S.E.2d at 740.

Here, the State’s evidence showed that defendant fled from 

the scene of the shooting and disposed of the gun by wrapping it 

in the shirt he was wearing during the shooting and throwing it

in an oil vat outside the hospital. This evidence is 

sufficiently incriminating to permit a reasonable inference that 

defendant knew or had reason to know that the gun was stolen. 

See State v. Taylor, 64 N.C. App. 165, 169, 307 S.E.2d 173, 176

(1983) (concluding that evidence that the defendant removed a 

firearm from his coat and threw it into nearby bushes was 

“sufficiently incriminating to permit a reasonable inference 

that defendant knew or must have known that the firearm was 
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stolen, and thus sufficient to support a finding to that effect 

by the jury”), aff’d in part and rev’d in part on other grounds, 

311 N.C. 380, 317 S.E.2d 369 (1984). We therefore find no error 

in defendant’s conviction for possession of a stolen firearm.

No Error.

Judges STEELMAN and DILLON concur.

Report per Rule 30(e).