Opinion ID: 1228203
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: appeal of the defendant braxton

Text: In his statement of the case on appeal, the defendant Braxton assigned as error: (1) The admission of various portions of the State's evidence, this assignment being based upon 35 unrelated exceptions; (2) the denial of 18 motions of widely varying nature made by this defendant before trial, during its progress and after the verdict; and (3) the signing and entry of the judgment. The first two assignments obviously violate Rule 10(c) of the Rules of Appellate Procedure, 287 N.C. 671, 699, which states that each assignment of error shall, so far as practicable, be confined to a single issue of law. This flagrant disregard for our rules is equally evident in the appeals of the other defendants also. Due to the serious nature of these cases, however, we have given careful consideration to all assignments of error made by each defendant. Assignment of Error No. 3 is formal and requires no discussion. It presents for review only the record proper. State v. Wilson, 289 N.C. 531, 538, 223 S.E.2d 311 (1976). The trial court had jurisdiction and no error appears on the face of the record proper. Furthermore, this assignment of error was not brought forward into the brief on appeal and is, therefore, deemed abandoned. Rule 28(a) of the Rules of Appellate Procedure, 287 N.C. 671, 741. This assignment is, therefore, overruled. Assignment of Error No. 1 is, likewise, not brought forward into the brief on appeal and is, for the same reason, deemed abandoned. We have, nevertheless, carefully examined each of the exceptions upon which this assignment of error is based and find no merit in any of them. It would serve no useful purpose to discuss these rulings of the trial court seriatim. In support of his Assignment of Error No. 2, the defendant Braxton contends that the court erred in denying his motion for a separate trial, allowing the motion of the District Attorney to consolidate the four cases for trial and in denying the motion of this defendant for a judgment of nonsuit. The remaining exceptions to the rulings of the trial court upon the motions of this defendant, included within his Assignment of Error No. 2, are not brought forward into the brief and, for the above mentioned reason, are deemed abandoned. We have, nevertheless, considered each of them and find each without merit. In the contention so made in the brief concerning the consolidation of the cases for trial and the denial of the motion for judgment of nonsuit, we also find no merit. G.S. 15A-926(b)(2) provides: (2) Upon written motion of the prosecutor, charges against two or more defendants may be joined for trial: a. When each of the defendants is charged with accountability for each offense; or b. When, even if all of the defendants are not charged with accountability for each offense, the several offenses charged: 1. Were part of a common scheme or plan; or 2. Were part of the same act or transaction; or 3. Were so closely connected in time, place, and occasion that it would be difficult to separate proof of one charge from proof of the others. The record shows that the State filed written motions prior to trial to consolidate the four cases here in question. While each of the successive rapes of the prosecutrix was a separate criminal offense, the record clearly shows that all of the offenses were parts of a common scheme or plan and each of the defendants was present, aiding and abetting in each offense. Under these circumstances, the granting of the motion for consolidation for trial rests in the sound discretion of the trial judge, and in the absence of a showing that the joint trial deprived the defendant of a fair trial, his exercise of that discretion by consolidating the cases for trial will not be disturbed on appeal. State v. Smith, 291 N.C. 505, 231 S.E.2d 663 (1977); State v. Fox, 274 N.C. 277, 163 S.E.2d 492 (1968); State v. Grundler, 251 N.C. 177, 191, 111 S.E.2d 1 (1959), cert. den., 362 U.S. 917, 80 S.Ct. 670, 4 L.Ed.2d 738 (1960). The defendant Braxton asserts that the consolidation of his case with the others for trial deprived him of a fair trial because, in violation of the rule of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), statements made to investigating officers by his codefendants were admitted in evidence over his objection. G.S. 15A-927(c)(1) provides: (1) When a defendant objects to joinder of charges against two or more defendants for trial because an out-of-court statement of a codefendant makes reference to him but is not admissible against him, the court must require the solicitor to select one of the following courses: a. A joint trial at which the statement is not admitted into evidence; or b. A joint trial at which the statement is admitted into evidence only after all references to the moving defendant have been effectively deleted so that the statement will not prejudice him; or c. A separate trial of the objecting defendant. In the present case, the trial judge chose, and the District Attorney complied with, the second of these alternatives. Statements made to investigating officers by defendants Burden, Howell and McIver were the subjects of extended voir dire examinations. As a result, the trial court ruled that each such statement was admissible against the declarant, but required each such statement to be carefully edited so as to delete therefrom any reference to any other defendant. This was done prior to the introduction of such statement in evidence, the record indicating that all counsel participating in the trial collaborated in such editing. This procedure and the allowance of each such statement in evidence did not violate either G.S. 15A-927(c) or the rule of Bruton v. United States, supra. The admission of such statements was not error as to the defendant Braxton. He is not mentioned in any of the statements so edited and admitted. The contention of the defendant Braxton that his motion for judgment as of nonsuit should have been allowed on the basis of the weakness of the identification of Braxton by the prosecuting witness is utterly without merit. A motion for a judgment of nonsuit is properly denied when the evidence, including evidence erroneously admitted ( State v. Hunt, 289 N.C. 403, 222 S.E.2d 234, death sentence vacated, 429 U.S. 809, 97 S.Ct. 46, 50 L.Ed.2d 69 (1976), considered in the light most favorable to the State and giving the State the benefit of every reasonable inference to be drawn therefrom, is sufficient to afford a reasonable basis for the finding by the jury that the offense charged has been committed and the defendant was the person who committed it. State v. Covington, 290 N.C. 313, 327, 226 S.E.2d 629 (1976); State v. Warren, 289 N.C. 551, 559, 223 S.E.2d 317 (1976); State v. Curry, 288 N.C. 660, 220 S.E.2d 545 (1975); State v. Goines, 273 N.C. 509, 160 S.E.2d 469 (1968). The evidence for the State is abundantly sufficient to meet this test. The testimony of the prosecuting witness, taken to be true, as it must be upon such a motion, shows successive, forcible rapes by this defendant and each of his companions. Her identification of Braxton in court as one of her assailants was clear and unequivocal. She testified that she was dragged by Braxton and Burden from her automobile, which was parked in a parking lot in which the lighting was good enough to see pretty well. She was forced by them into the automobile parked beside her own and transported many miles, on a brightly moonlit night, during which Braxton was sitting immediately beside her and, thereafter, she was raped successively by him and his three companions in the moonlit abandoned house, into which they pushed her. It was Braxton who there virtually disrobed her and, following the successive rapes, compelled her to commit the revolting act of oral sex upon him. It was he who fired the pistol into the floor whereon she lay, the bullet striking the floor very close to her head. On the ride from the place where she was seized to the house wherein she was so raped, they passed through the well lighted streets of the City of Fayetteville and thereafter through the lighted streets of a small town. Under these circumstances, it is absurd to contend that the State's evidence is not sufficient to go to the jury on the question of Braxton's identity. The identification of Braxton as one of the assailants is, furthermore, corroborated by the testimony of his barber that, on the day following this occurrence, Braxton had his head shaved, thus altering his appearance and that he had said to another customer, who thereafter entered the barber shop, I'm glad you can't recognize me because I got to leave town. Braxton was found by the police, three days later hiding in a closet. After the prosecutrix had testified to the lighting in the parking lot from which she was abducted and that, hearing a knocking upon the window of her car, she turned and looked into the face of a black male standing at the window, she was asked if she recognized that man in the courtroom, to which she replied in the affirmative. Thereupon, each of the defendants objected. The objections were overruled and, with no request for a voir dire examination of the witness, she proceeded to identify that man as Burden. She testified that she reached to start her car again and thereupon Burden pulled the gun from under his jacket, stuck it up to the window, pointed it directly at her head and directed her to roll down the window. She looked to the other side to see if she could escape through that door and, at that time, saw Braxton, identified by her in court, on the other side of her car. There was no objection specifically directed to this in-court identification of Braxton. Thereafter, without objection concerning his identification, the prosecutrix repeatedly testified concerning his presence and conduct throughout the series of events. Assuming, without deciding, that, under these circumstances, the general objection by Braxton, above noted, with no request for a voir dire examination of the witness, was sufficient to require the court to conduct such an examination, in the absence of the jury, as to the admissibility of the testimony of this witness concerning the identity of Braxton as one of her assailants, the failure to conduct such voir dire was harmless error beyond any reasonable doubt. No defendant made a motion, prior to trial, to suppress identification testimony by this witness. We find in the record no suggestion whatever of any questionable pretrial identification procedures. Nothing in the record indicates that this witness saw any of these defendants from the time they abandoned her on the rural road after the alleged offenses to their preliminary hearing upon the present charges. There is no suggestion in the record that she ever identified, or was requested to identify, any other person than these four defendants as one of her assailants on this occasion. As above shown, her opportunity to observe each defendant at the time of the occurrences was ample. It is inconceivable that a voir dire examination would have disclosed any basis for objection to her in-court identification of Braxton, or any of the other three defendants, as one of the men who so abducted and raped her. The defendant Braxton's brief states that this witness did not identify him in the probable cause hearing, but there is nothing in the record to show that, at the probable cause hearing, she was requested to identify any of the defendants. Some time after her identification of Braxton and Burden as the men who pulled her from her own car and of McIver as the driver of the car into which she was forced, at the request of Howell's counsel, a voir dire was conducted with reference to the identification by the prosecutrix of Howell as the fourth man in the car into which she was forced. On this voir dire no defendant offered evidence and counsel for neither Braxton, Burden nor McIver questioned the prosecutrix. This man was sitting on the passenger side of the front seat and the prosecutrix had testified before the jury that as she entered the car she did not get a good look at him. On the voir dire, however, she testified that this man turned around and she observed his full face as the car was passing through a small town in which there were street lights and lights of filling stations. Furthermore, as she testified, the light of a bright moon prevented the house into which she was taken from being dark. The moon would, of course, cast light into the car. In the course of this voir dire the witness testified: Q. Did you identify him [Howell] at the District Court hearing [the preliminary hearing]? A. I identified all four as the ones. They didn't ask me to point them out as I recall. Q. Could you tell the difference between the four defendants at the District Court? A. Of course I could tell the difference between them. Q. If you hadn't seen them at the District Court hearing, would you be able to identify them today? A. Yes, I would have.       Q. You are saying, then, that your testimony today, your identification today, is based on your observations of these four defendants on the night of the 10th of February, 1977, is that correct? A. Yes, sir. Upon the conclusion of that voir dire, the court entered an order making full findings of fact that the in-court identification of Howell was based upon the witness' identification of him on the night of the abduction and rape, and Howell's objection to the allowance of such testimony as to him was overruled. Clearly, the evidence thus brought forth upon the voir dire examination, conducted at the request of defendant Howell, removes any possible lingering doubt as to the admissibility of her testimony identifying the defendants Braxton, Burden and McIver. We find no error in the record which would justify the granting of a new trial to the defendant Braxton. His conviction and the sentence imposed upon him must, therefore, be affirmed.