Opinion ID: 1235605
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: defendant wray's appeal

Text: Wray sought to introduce statements made by defendant Tucker on 15 April 1987, 22 February 1988, and 25 February 1988. In the first, defendant Tucker stated to Agent Bryant that he could say with absolute certainty that his source of Dilaudid was an individual in Gastonia, that Wray was not the source, and that he and Donna did not deal drugs with Wray because neither trusted him after defendant Tucker testified against Wray's father in a federal drug case. In this statement defendant Tucker did not implicate Wray in the murder of Cecil. On 22 February 1988, however, defendant Tucker claimed that Wray had killed Cecil. On 25 February 1988, Tucker claimed that Wray killed Cecil and the Tuckers were hired only to lure her out for Wray. The trial court excluded these statements, as well as statements made by defendant Tucker on 12 April 1988, as hearsay and under the authority of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). In Bruton, the United States Supreme Court held that at a joint trial, admission of a statement by a nontestifying codefendant that incriminated the other defendant violated that defendant's right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. Id. at 126, 88 S.Ct. at 1622, 20 L.Ed.2d at 479. This right binds the states via the Fourteenth Amendment. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 403, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 1067, 13 L.Ed.2d 923, 926 (1965); State v. Parrish, 275 N.C. 69, 74, 165 S.E.2d 230, 234 (1969). The result is that in joint trials of defendants it is necessary to exclude extrajudicial confessions unless all portions which implicate defendants other than the declarant can be deleted without prejudice either to the State or the declarant. If such deletion is not possible, the State must choose between relinquishing the confession or trying the defendants separately. The foregoing pronouncement presupposes (1) that the confession is inadmissible as to the codefendant ..., and (2) that the declarant will not take the stand. If the declarant can be cross-examined, a codefendant has been accorded his right to confrontation. State v. Fox, 274 N.C. 277, 291, 163 S.E.2d 492, 502 (1968). These principles are substantially codified in N.C.G.S. § 15A-927(c). The trial court has three choices when a defendant objects to joinder due to the existence of an extrajudicial statement by a codefendant that makes reference to the objecting defendant but is not admissible as to the objecting defendant: 1) a joint trial at which the statement is not admitted; 2) a joint trial at which the statement is admitted in a sanitized form; or 3) a separate trial for the objecting defendant. N.C.G.S. § 15A-927(c) (1988). The trial court correctly precluded admission of statements given by defendant Tucker on 12 April 1988. On that date, Tucker gave a detailed statement implicating himself, Donna, and defendant Wray. He stated that Wray hired the Tuckers to kill Cecil in exchange for $1,000 in cash and $1,000 in pills. Tucker described meeting Cecil and driving around with her as the Tuckers and Cecil looked for the hidden pills. According to Tucker, he began to have doubts about killing Cecil, but at Donna's urging he hit Cecil over the head. The next day Wray paid the Tuckers and told them how to get rid of the car. After lengthy debate and an unsuccessful attempt to sanitize this statement, the State withdrew its proffer. Later, the trial court ruled that other statements made by Tucker on 12 April were part of the same transaction and therefore were also inadmissible. While the 12 April 1988 statement clearly was inadmissible under Bruton and N.C.G.S. § 15A-927(c), the trial court erred in precluding admission of the 15 April 1987 statement. Bruton only applies when a confession by a nontestifying defendant is inadmissible as to the codefendant. Fox, 274 N.C. at 291, 163 S.E.2d at 502; see also N.C.G.S. § 15A-927(c)(1) (1988). A statement is inadmissible as to a codefendant only if it is made outside his presence and incriminates him. See State v. Bonner, 222 N.C. 344, 345, 23 S.E.2d 45, 46 (1942); see also State v. King, 287 N.C. 645, 654, 215 S.E.2d 540, 550 (1975), judgment vacated in part, 428 U.S. 903, 96 S.Ct. 3208, 49 L.Ed.2d 1209 (1976). While the 15 April statement was made outside Wray's presence, it does not incriminate him. Indeed, it tends to exonerate him, which is why he sought to introduce it. The refusal to admit this statement deprived Wray not only of exculpatory substantive evidence but also of evidence that contradicted testimony of the State's key witness, Donna Tucker. Neither was the 15 April statement inadmissible as hearsay. Upon defendant Tucker's invocation of his right not to incriminate himself, the 15 April statement became admissible as a statement against penal interest by an unavailable witness. N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rules 804(a)(1), 804(b)(3) (1988); State v. Singleton, 85 N.C.App. 123, 128, 354 S.E.2d 259, 263, disc. rev. denied, 320 N.C. 516, 358 S.E.2d 530 (1987). If a statement so far tend[s] to subject [the declarant] to ... criminal liability ... that a reasonable man in his position would not have made the statement unless he believed it to be true, it is admissible. N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 804(b)(3). The statement must actually subject the declarant to criminal liability. Singleton, 85 N.C.App. at 129, 354 S.E.2d at 263. An anonymous letter does not satisfy this element because a declarant who conceals his identity does not tend to expose himself to criminal liability. State v. Artis, 325 N.C. 278, 304, 384 S.E.2d 470, 484-85 (1989), cert. granted and judgment vacated, 494 U.S. 1023, 110 S.Ct. 1466, 108 L.Ed.2d 604, on remand, 327 N.C. 470, 397 S.E.2d 223 (1990), on remand, 329 N.C. 679, 406 S.E.2d 827 (1991). Here, however, Tucker's identity was known and his liability for various drug offenses was clear. The statement also must be such that the declarant would understand its damaging potential. Id. 325 N.C. at 305, 384 S.E.2d at 485. Some courts have held that statements made to law enforcement officers or prosecutors as part of plea bargain negotiations do not meet this element because the reasonable man in those circumstances would not believe his statement necessarily subjected him to criminal liability. United States v. Rhodes, 713 F.2d 463, 473 (9th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1012, 104 S.Ct. 535, 78 L.Ed.2d 715, cert. denied sub nom. Dudley v. United States, 465 U.S. 1038, 104 S.Ct. 1314, 79 L.Ed.2d 711 (1984); United States v. Callahan, 442 F.Supp. 1213, 1222 (D.Minn.1978), record supplemented, 455 F.Supp. 524, judgment rev'd on other grounds sub nom. United States v. Larson, 596 F.2d 759 (8th Cir.1979). While there is evidence that defendant Tucker cooperated with law enforcement officers during the spring of 1988, there is no evidence that he had entered into a relationship with the authorities as early as 15 April 1987. In the majority of cases, the statement at issue subjects the declarant to liability for the crime(s) of which the defendant is accused. Under our pre-Rules case law the declaration had to be one that the declarant committed the crime for which the defendant was on trial, and the admission had to be inconsistent with the guilt of the defendant. State v. Haywood, 295 N.C. 709, 730, 249 S.E.2d 429, 442 (1978). Haywood overturned the prior North Carolina practice of precluding admission of statements against penal interest as hearsay yet retained several restrictive requirements, most of which survived passage of the Rules of Evidence. Singleton, 85 N.C.App. at 129, 354 S.E.2d at 263; 1 Henry Brandis, Jr., Brandis on North Carolina Evidence § 147 at 679 (3d ed. 1988). This Court, however, has admitted statements under Rule 804(b)(3) that subject the declarant to criminal liability for offenses other than those for which the defendant is on trial. In State v. Levan, 326 N.C. 155, 388 S.E.2d 429 (1990), several witnesses were permitted to testify about statements made by the victim of a murder charged against the defendant. The victim said he had shot and killed someone to whom he was sent to collect a drug debt owed to the defendant. Later, the collector was himself killed. The State tried the defendant for the murder on the theory that the defendant killed him because the defendant feared the collector would testify against him in drug cases in exchange for a deal from the State on the collection-shooting death. The Court held that the statement by the defendant's victim that he had shot one of the defendant's clients who had cut the defendant on a drug deal was a statement against the penal interest of the victim, admissible under Rule 804(b)(3). Id. at 163-64, 388 S.E.2d at 433; see also Maugeri v. State, 460 So.2d 975, 976-79 (Fla. Dist.Ct.App.1984), cause dismissed, 469 So.2d 749 (1987) (statement by victim to his girlfriend, two days before his murder, that he had stolen two kilograms of cocaine from the defendant's airplane, admissible under the hearsay exception for statements against penal interest); cf. David W. Louissell & Christopher B. Mueller, Federal Evidence § 489 at 1149-52 (1980) (against-interest requirement satisfied by a third-party confession which implicates both the declarant and the accused in some other crime, where the effect of the statement is to exonerate the accused in some way respecting the charged crime, as by ... corroborating a defense explanation of otherwise damning circumstantial evidence) (emphasis added). As in the cited cases, Tucker's declaration involved crimes other than those for which Wray was tried. Tucker's statement is similar to those at issue in the above cases in that it bears on collateral but related issues in the case against Wray. In Levan and Maugeri, the statements by the victims helped explain, from the State's point of view, why the victims were killed. Though it incriminates him in drug dealing, Tucker's statement tends to corroborate Wray's testimony that Wray did not deal in drugs, that he did not have a relationship with the Tuckers, that he would not have turned to them for aid because he did not trust them or get along with them, and that he did not ask them to help with a problem witness. The statement tended to counter the State's position on important issues in the caseWray's involvement in the drug trade, his motivation to kill Cecil, and his employment of the Tuckers to kill Cecil. One requirement enunciated in Haywood which expressly carries over in the Rules is that a statement against penal interest is not admissible unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement. N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 804(b)(3); see Haywood, 295 N.C. at 730, 249 S.E.2d at 442. The circumstantial guaranty of reliability for declarations against interest is the assumption that persons do not make statements which are damaging to themselves unless satisfied for good reason that they are true. N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 804(b)(3), comment (quoting Advisory Committee's Note); see also United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 583, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 2082, 29 L.Ed.2d 723, 734 (1971); Levan, 326 N.C. at 163-64, 388 S.E.2d at 433. This aspect of Rule 804(b)(3) requires that corroborating evidence support the assumption of reliability. The evidence here provides the requisite indications of trustworthiness: 1) Tucker had been addicted for years; 2) the Tuckers had been estranged from Wray during some of those years; 3) the Tuckers had been inaccessible to Wray and his family at least during the period while Tucker was placed in a witness protection program; 4) Donna had used many sources to satisfy Tucker's drug needs; 5) Tucker had testified against Wray and Wray's father; and 6) Tucker made this statement almost a full year before he made the statements implicating Wray. While Tucker later said he received drugs from Wray on at least one occasion in part payment for Cecil's murder, the record does not reveal that Tucker ever expressly repudiated his 15 April 1987 statement that Wray was not his drug source. We conclude that Tucker's statement on 12 April 1988 is not so inconsistent with his assertion on 15 April 1987 that the assertion is untrustworthy. The trial court also erred in precluding admission of the 22 February and 25 February 1988 statements, in which Tucker said that Wray, not he, killed Cecil. Despite the inculpatory nature of the statements as to Wray, Wray sought to use them to support his defense that the Tuckers planned and executed the murder of Cecil without any involvement on his part, and over a period of time conspired to implicate him in order to get a deal from the State. Wray contends that the mere existence of such inconsistent statements by Tucker undermines the State's theory of the case and adds weight to his theory that the Tuckers cast about for a means of escaping punishment. Because defendant Tucker was not a witness at the trial, the February statements would have served to impeach only Donna. As to the February statements, we hold that the trial court erroneously applied Bruton to Wray's prejudice by precluding him from presenting evidence in support of his defense. Further, because Wray did not offer the statements as the truth of the matters asserted, i.e., that he killed Cecil or hired the Tuckers to lure her out, but rather offered them to discredit the State's theory of the case, the statements are not inadmissible hearsay. N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 801(c) (1988). Because Wray sought to introduce rather than to exclude statements by his codefendant, Bruton is inapposite. The more appropriate precedents are those in which joinder of charges against codefendants, one who testifies and one who does not, leads to deprivation of the right to a fair trial because the testifying defendant is precluded from presenting exculpatory evidence. E.g., State v. Boykin, 307 N.C. 87, 296 S.E.2d 258 (1982); State v. Alford, 289 N.C. 372, 222 S.E.2d 222, vacated in part on other grounds sub nom. Carter v. North Carolina, 429 U.S. 809, 97 S.Ct. 46, 50 L.Ed.2d 69 (1976). Alford involved a joint trial of two codefendants, Alford and Carter, for armed robbery and murder. Alford testified and presented an alibi defense, while Carter did not testify. Carter had made a pretrial statement to the authorities implicating himself and another man, Larry Waddell, in the crimes. Carter did not mention Alford in the statement, and eyewitness testimony established that there were only two perpetrators. The State did not offer the statement, apparently to avoid weakening its case against Alford. Id. 289 N.C. at 387, 222 S.E.2d at 232. This Court held that because Carter could have refused to testify on the basis of the Fifth Amendment, Alford was effectively deprived of evidence which would have corroborated his alibi testimony. Id. at 388, 222 S.E.2d at 232. Under the circumstances, Alford's defense was so prejudiced by the trial court's denial of his motion to sever that he was denied his rights to due process and confrontation. Id. at 389, 222 S.E.2d at 233; see also Boykin, 307 N.C. at 90-92, 296 S.E.2d at 260-61. In Alford the Court relied on Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973), in which the Supreme Court held that the conjunction of two errors by the trial court deprived the defendant of a fair trial. Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302, 93 S.Ct. at 1049, 35 L.Ed.2d at 313. The first occurred when the trial court prevented the defendant from cross-examining his own witness McDonald about circumstances surrounding the signing by the witness of a written confession to the shooting for which the defendant was being tried. Id. at 296, 93 S.Ct. at 1046, 35 L.Ed.2d at 309. The trial court also precluded, as hearsay, testimony by three witnesses that McDonald had confessed to them that he shot the victim. Id. at 298-302, 93 S.Ct. at 1047-49, 35 L.Ed.2d at 310-13. While these cases support our holding awarding Wray a new trial, they differ from this case in two ways. First, they are all pre-Rules. As such, they turn on analyses of the constitutional rights to due process and confrontation and the statutory right to a fair trial. Here, the Rules of Evidence apply. Courts do not resolve issues on a constitutional basis when they can be resolved on other grounds. State v. Agee, 326 N.C. 542, 546, 391 S.E.2d 171, 173 (1990); State v. Creason, 313 N.C. 122, 127, 326 S.E.2d 24, 27 (1985). We thus confine our reasoning and holding to the Rules of Evidence. Second, because there were then no hearsay exceptions covering these statements, this Court in Alford and Boykin was obliged to find error in the failure of the trial court to grant severance. Here, we hold that the trial court erred in precluding admission of the statements because they were either nonhearsay or admissible under a hearsay exception. The sole direct evidence against Wray was the testimony of Donna Tucker, an interested witness of highly questionable credibility. Wray's defense was that the Tuckers killed Cecil with no knowledge or involvement on his part, then sought to escape punishment by implicating him. The number of and inconsistencies in defendant Tucker's pretrial statements not only support this theory, but could well have fatally undermined the State's theory of the case contained in the testimony of Donna Tucker. We thus cannot conclude that the error was harmless. N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) (1988). Defendant Wray also contends he should not have been convicted of a Class A or capital felony because his conviction was based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of a coconspirator, Donna. The statute under which Wray was convicted provides: [I]f a person who heretofore would have been guilty and punishable as an accessory before the fact is convicted of a capital felony, and the jury finds that his conviction was based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of one or more principals, coconspirators, or accessories to the crime, he shall be guilty of a Class B felony. N.C.G.S. § 14-5.2 (1986). In a related argument, Wray challenges the trial court's instructions defining corroboration for purposes of this statute. Because Wray did not object to the instructions at trial, he cannot now assign them as error. Further, the jury found that the conviction of First Degree murder [was] not based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of one or more principals. (Emphasis in original.) Even assuming, however, that Wray's conviction was based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of Donna, Wray cannot show prejudice. Having received a sentence of life imprisonment, he cannot be subjected to the death penalty at his new trial. Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 101 S.Ct. 1852, 68 L.Ed.2d 270 (1981); State v. Silhan, 302 N.C. 223, 270, 275 S.E.2d 450, 482 (1981). Whether he is tried, therefore, for a Class A or a Class B felony, the maximum punishment he can receive is life imprisonment.