Opinion ID: 1265006
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Examination of Annette West

Text: A material element of the State's case is its effort to establish that Pennisi was killed on Sunday, 15 June, shortly after 8 p. m. The State's evidence included testimony by Captain Jackson of a statement made to him by the defendant that the defendant talked to Pennisi between 7:30 and 8 p. m. on 15 June and that Pennisi then told the defendant he had a date with some woman that evening. The defendant called as his witness Mrs. Annette West. She testified: She had known Pennisi since 1961; she saw him at her place of employment and would see him after work on dates occasionally; she saw him on dates on Tuesday and Friday nights of the week prior to 15 June; she talked with him on Sunday, 15 June. The defendant assigns as error the sustaining of numerous objections by the State to questions propounded to this witness by the defendant. Many of these related to the length of time during which she had been seeing Pennisi and to their actions on those occasions. These objections were properly sustained, the proposed testimony having no relevancy to the matter on trial, the character of Pennisi not being in issue. Evidence as to the general moral character of the deceased is not admissible in a prosecution for homicide. State v. Hodgin, 210 N.C. 371, 186 S.E. 495. Pertinent questions related to the hour of the conversation on Sunday, 15 June, and to whether she talked with Pennisi by telephone on 17 June, two days after the date on which the State contends he was killed. Nothing else appearing, these questions were proper since the date and hour of Pennisi's death are material factors in the State's case. However, prior to these questions, the defendant was permitted to examine this witness in the absence of the jury upon these matters, and others. She then stated that the conversation on Sunday, 15 June, occurred in the afternoon and related to the making of a date for Pennisi to pick her up at about 8 p. m., but he never came. On this voir dire examination, she also testified that she received a telephone call from a man on Tuesday, 17 June, but she didn't catch the voice because [Pennisi] don't usually say anything like that and, consequently, she terminated the telephone conversation. She acknowledged that she had previously told Captain Jackson that she took the person making the call on Tuesday to be Pennisi. The caller addressed her Hi, Kid, Pennisi usually calling her Kid. The sustaining of the objections to the questions relating to the conversation on Sunday, 15 June, was not prejudicial to the defendant, since it occurred in the afternoon. On the contrary, had the witness been permitted to testify that Pennisi did not show up for the appointment at 8 p. m., this circumstance would have tended to strengthen the case for the State. The sustaining of the objections to the questions relating to the supposed telephone conversation on 17 June was not prejudicial to the defendant since the record shows the witness would have answered that she could not identify the caller on this date as Pennisi. On the contrary, her testimony would have been that while the caller addressed her as Kid, the content of the conversation was so different from the customary conversation of Pennisi that she hung up the telephone. Far from being beneficial to the defendant, the jury might well have concluded from this testimony that someone was impersonating Pennisi so as to give the impression that he was still alive. There is no merit in this assignment of error.