Opinion ID: 1271638
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: appeal of davis and honeycutt

Text: Davis and Honeycutt each assign as error the court's refusal to allow their motions for nonsuit. The State's evidence as to Davis, excluding the extrajudicial statements of his codefendants and all evidence which the court instructed the jury not to consider against him, tends to show the following facts: About 1:30 p. m. on 29 August 1972 law enforcement officers found Mr. Bunn's dead body across the threshold of his store, a two-inch hole in his chest. A trail of blood led from a counter in the store to the body. (This evidence was also competent as to Honeycutt.) About 11:00 a. m. on 29 August 1972 Davis was the passenger in a burgundy Dodge automobile which Fish backed up to the door of Mr. Bunn's store. Davis got out, followed by Fish, who was waving a sawed-off shotgun. Fish forced Bunn, who had been standing in the yard, into his store. All three of them went into the store. Thereafter Ricky Pope, who was observing these proceedings, heard a shot. In about a minute Fish and Davis came out of the store and sped away in the burgundy Dodge. Later that afternoon the officers found the Dodge on the path into the wooded area from which Ricky had seen a white truck emerge as he left the vicinity of Bunn's store. About 2:00 p. m. that afternoon Davis, Fish, and Honeycutt were together at Fish's residence in Raleigh. On 9 September 1972 Wake County officers returned Fish and Davis to Raleigh from a Texas town about 90 miles from the Mexican border. Two days later, after being fully warned of his constitutional rights, Davis told the officers that on August 29th he and two other friends, after talking for a while, went to Clayton and got a car. Then they went to Mr. Bunn's store, and while he and his friend were there Bunn was shot and killed. Thereafter they got rid of the car and went on and left. After making the above statement Davis told the officers that if they would permit him, Fish, and Honeycutt to talk they would get a complete statement straightened out. The officers permitted the defendants to confer privately and thereafter Davis made the statement which has been heretofore set out in full in the preliminary narrative of the evidence. In his second statement Davis said that he, Fish, and Honeycutt went to Clayton and got the car in which he and Fish drove to Bunn's store; that he stood outside, and Mr. Bunn went in first and Mack followed in behind; that he heard a gun go off and saw Bunn fall; that they then left, ditched the car in the woods, rode back to Raleigh with Wallace Honeycutt, and then they left. The State's evidence against Honeycutt, excluding the evidence which the court instructed the jury not to consider against him, tends to show: On 27 August 1972, the Sunday before Mr. Bunn was killed, Honeycutt was at Fish's home. There Debra Garland Nipper heard Fish and Honeycutt talking about a service station or something. Honeycutt told Fish that the man who ran the store always had money but he kept a gun in a cigar box; that he was an old man, not too smart, and it shouldn't be hard to rob him. About 2:00 p. m. on Tuesday, 29 August 1972, about one hour after Mr. Bunn was killed, Honeycutt was at Fish's residence with him and Davis. On 11 September 1972 Fish, Davis, and Honeycutt, who were in the Wake County jail, after being fully advised of their constitutional rights, were permitted to confer privately. After being alone for 15-20 minutes they knocked on the door of their conference room and the officers went in. Thereupon Davis and Fish made the statements which have heretofore been set out in full in the preliminary summation of the evidence. After Davis and Fish had concluded their statements, Officer Munn asked Honeycutt if the statements by Fish and Davis were true and he said that they were. In his statement with reference to Honeycutt, Davis said that on August 29th about 12:30 p. m. Honeycutt and Fish picked him up at a friend's home; that they then went to Clayton and got the car in which he and Fish went to Bunn's store; that after Mr. Bunn was shot they ditched the car in the woods and rode back to Raleigh with Wallace Honeycutt.. . . Fish's statement contains the following reference to Honeycutt: (After leaving Bunn's store Fish drove the automobile down a dirt path on the other side of the bridge.) I turned down there and the best I rememberlike Wallace [Honeycutt] he was pretty drunk and I told him, I said, `Man I can drive a lot better than you anyway' so I got in the carmade him get in the truck or something. Anyway I ended up driving . . . . I don't think we stopped any place else to get any beer or anything; but anyway I ended up home and then I pulled out some dope and I rolled up some joints and we all smoked some dope and Wallace he passed out on the bed . . . . All admitted evidence, competent and incompetent, is for consideration in passing upon the motions for nonsuit. State v. Stallings, 267 N.C. 405, 148 S.E.2d 252 (1966). However, considering the preceding evidence, unaugmented by the statements of codefendants and in the light most favorable to the State, State v. Cutler, 271 N.C. 379, 156 S.E.2d 679 (1967), the State's evidence is sufficient to establish the following facts: Fish, Davis, and Honeycutt conspired to rob Mr. Bunn at his store. For that purpose the three went to Clayton, where they stole a burgundy Dodge. While Honeycutt waited for them in a truck at a parking place in a wooded area nearby, Fish and Davis drove the stolen Dodge to Bunn's store. In the attempt to rob him Fish shot and killed Bunn. Immediately thereafter he and Davis drove the Dodge to the area where Honeycutt awaited them. There they abandoned the Dodge and returned in Honeycutt's truck to Fish's home in Raleigh, where Honeycutt passed out after smoking some dope. Later in the afternoon Davis and Fish left Raleigh and eleven days later were apprehended in Hondo, Texas. We hold the foregoing facts sufficient to sustain the jury's verdict that Davis and Honeycutt were guilty of the felony-murder with which each was charged. We next consider the court's refusal to grant the motions of Davis and Honeycutt for trials separate and apart from each of their codefendants. Prior to the decision in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L. Ed.2d 476 (1968), whether defendants indicted for the same crime would be tried jointly or separately was a matter resting in the sound discretion of the trial judge. State v. Battle, 267 N.C. 513, 148 S.E.2d 599 (1966). In the absence of a showing that a joint trial had deprived the objecting defendant of a fair trial, the court's exercise of its discretion would not be disturbed upon appeal. When the extrajudicial confession of one defendant which implicated another against whom it was inadmissible, was offered in evidence, the trial judge admitted it with an instruction that the confession was evidence only against the confessor and must not be considered against the codefendant. State v. Lynch, 266 N.C. 584, 146 S.E.2d 677 (1966). In Bruton, the Supreme Court held that, in a joint trial, the admission of a confession which implicated a codefendant violated his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation when the confessor did not take the stand so that he could be cross-examined. In consequence of Bruton, in State v. Fox, 274 N.C. 277, 163 S.E.2d 492 (1968), we held 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 (see State v. Bryant, supra [250 N.C. 113, 108 S.E.2d 128], 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. Id. at 291, 163 S.E.2d at 502. See State v. Kerley, 246 N.C. 157, 97 S.E.2d 876 (1957). Since none of the three defendants in this case testified, both Davis' and Honeycutt's first assignment of error presents the question whether, in the joint trial, the admission of incriminating statements by a codefendant constituted prejudicial error against the objecting defendant. Under the rule we laid down in Fox and subsequent cases Davis and Honeycutt will each be entitled to a new trial unless the statements were competent against the nondeclarant or, if incompetent, their admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In State v. Williams, 275 N.C. 77, 165 S.E.2d 481 (1969), and State v. Parrish, 275 N.C. 69, 165 S.E.2d 230 (1969), new trials were awarded. For cases holding that the trial court's infraction of the Fox rule was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, see State v. Jones, 280 N.C. 322, 185 S.E.2d 858 (1972); State v. Fletcher and State v. St. Arnold, 279 N.C. 85, 181 S.E. 2d 405 (1971); State v. Swaney, 277 N.C. 602, 178 S.E.2d 399 (1970); State v. Brinson, 277 N.C. 286, 177 S.E.2d 398 (1970). The jury was instructed not to consider against Davis the following evidence which was admitted over his objection: (a) Debra Garland Nipper's statement that on August 27th she heard Fish and Honeycutt talking about a filling station and that Honeycutt told Fish the man who ran the store always had a lot of money; that he had a gun, but he kept it in a cigar box; that he was an old man, not too smart, and it should not be hard to rob him. (b) Nipper's statement that on August 29th Fish told Wall he had had to do a man a job; that the man pulled a gun on him and it was either his life or the other man's. (c) Wall's statement that Fish told him on August 29th that They had went and the man had pulled a gun on them and it was either one of them getting shot, and that he had to shoot him. (d) The gun, State's Exhibit No. 1. (e) Fish's letter of November 7th to the judge. In addition to the foregoing evidence Davis assigns as error the admission of Fish's statement, made September 11th, and of Honeycutt's statement that the statements of Fish and Davis were correct. These statements were admitted generally. Honeycutt also objected to statements (b) and (c) and the gun (d), set out above in the enumeration of Davis' objections, and the jury was instructed not to consider this evidence (admitted only as to Fish) against Honeycutt. In addition Honeycutt objected to the statements which Fish and Davis made on September 11th. His objections were overruled and these statements were admitted without restriction. Under the rule enunciated in Bruton and Fox the court's attempt to restrict the application of any of the foregoing evidence to a specified defendant was a futile gesture. The admission of statements (a), (b), (c), the letter (e) and the statements which Fish and Honeycutt made to the officers on September 11th, which the court admitted generally, denied Davis his constitutional right of confrontation and cross-examination guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. State v. Brinson, supra . See also Stansbury's N.C. Evidence (Brandis Rev., 1973) § 179. The admission in evidence of items (b), (c) and (e) deprived Honeycutt of the same right. The admission of the gun (d), which Ricky Pope identified as the gun he saw Fish take into Bunn's store, was not error as to either. Nor was the admission of the statements of Fish and Davis error as to Honeycutt, who adopted them when he told the officers that they were true. It is our view, however, that competent evidence against both Davis and Honeycutt so positively establishes their guilty participation in Bunn's murder that the incompetent evidence, even in its totality, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The test of harmless error is whether there is a reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction. State v. Brinson, supra at 295, 177 S.E.2d at 404. Competent evidence as to Honeycutt establishes that he was the author of the plan to rob Mr. Bunn. Competent evidence as to both Davis and Honeycutt establishes that the three defendants went together to Clayton where they got the car in which Davis and Fish drove to Bunn's store; that Honeycutt waited in a truck at the wooded parking area about a mile from the store while Fish and Davis went there to rob Bunn; that Fish, by means of a shotgun, forced Bunn into his store and Davis followed; that while those two were in the store Bunn was shot and killed and they fled in the Dodge; that a few minutes later a truck came out of the entrance to the wooded parking area, where later that afternoon officers found the Dodge in which Fish and Davis went to Bunn's store; that about 1:30 p. m. the officers found Bunn's dead body lying across the threshold to his store, a two-inch hole in his chest; that in less than an hour after Davis and Fish left Bunn's store in the Dodge they and Honeycutt were at Fish's home in Raleigh. To the foregoing basic facts the details contained in confessions of codefendants and the statements which Fish made to Nipper and Wall add nothing of significance. Without them we have no doubt that the verdicts would have been the same. See State v. Jones, supra ; State v. Brinson, supra . Davis' assignment of error which challenges the validity of the two statements which he made to the officers on September 11th, and Honeycutt's assignment of error challenging the admissibility of his statement to the officers that the Davis and Fish statements of September 11th were true, are without merit. Before admitting the challenged statements the court conducted a voir dire on which he heard the witnesses for the State and the testimony of Davis and Honeycutt. Thereafter, upon supporting evidence, he found that the three statements were made freely, understandingly, and voluntarily. These findings are conclusive on appeal. State v. Roseman, 279 N.C. 573, 184 S.E.2d 289 (1971). After considering defendants' other assignments of error we deem it unnecessary to discuss them. None discloses prejudicial error. In concluding this labored opinion we are constrained to note that it points up the hazards which lie in wait for the State when it moves to consolidate such cases as these for trial. After the judge allowed the solicitor's motion to consolidate, both seem to have proceeded under the law as it existed in the era before Bruton and Fox. Both ignored the Fox pronouncement that in a consolidated trial all portions of an extrajudicial confession or incriminating statement by one defendant which implicate a codefendant are inadmissible unless (1) special circumstances render the statement also admissible against the codefendants, or (2) the defendant making the statement takes the stand so that he may be cross-examined. State v. Fox, 274 N.C. 277, 163 S.E.2d 492, 502 (1968). In the trial, as to each of the three defendants, we find no prejudicial error. No Error.