Opinion ID: 4530919
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: 2 The majority also rejected defendant’s challenges to evidentiary rulings by the trial court, including defendant’s arguments “that the trial court erroneously (1) excluded a Facebook post proffered by defendant to impeach a juror-witness and (2) admitted the jurorwitnesses’ testimony about the fraternity party fight underlying Dan’s trial, while excluding defendant’s testimony about the same issue.” State v. Mylett, 822 S.E.2d 518, 528 (N.C. Ct. App. 2018). The dissenting judge did not address these issues, and defendant did not seek further review of these issues in this Court. -5- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court Defendant argues that the Court of Appeals majority erred in: (1) concluding that the State presented sufficient evidence of a conspiracy to threaten or intimidate a juror; (2) rejecting defendant’s constitutional challenges to N.C.G.S. § 14-225.2(a)(2) on the basis that it violates his First Amendment rights and that it is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad; and (3) concluding that the trial court did not err in denying defendant’s requested jury instruction defining “intimidate.” We conclude that there was insufficient evidence of a conspiracy to threaten or intimidate a juror and therefore the trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss the conspiracy charge. In light of our holding, we need not address defendant’s other contentions. When ruling on a defendant’s motion to dismiss for sufficiency of the evidence, the trial court must determine “whether there is substantial evidence (1) of each essential element of the offense charged, or of a lesser offense included therein, and (2) of defendant’s being the perpetrator of such offense.” State v. Powell, 299 N.C. 95, 98, 261 S.E.2d 114, 117 (1980) (first citing State v. Roseman, 279 N.C. 573, 580, 184 S.E.2d 289, 294 (1971); then citing State v. Mason, 279 N.C. 435, 439, 183 S.E.2d 661, 663 (1971)). “Substantial evidence is evidence from which any rational trier of fact could find the fact to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Sumpter, 318 N.C. 102, 108, 347 S.E.2d 396, 399 (1986) (first citing State v. Pridgen, 313 N.C. 80, 94–95, 326 S.E.2d 618, 627 (1985); then citing State v. Jones, 303 N.C. 500, 504, 279 S.E.2d 835, 838 (1981)). “[T]he trial court must consider the evidence in the light -6- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court most favorable to the State, drawing all reasonable inferences in the State’s favor.” State v. Miller, 363 N.C. 96, 98, 678 S.E.2d 592, 594 (2009) (citing State v. McCullers, 341 N.C. 19, 28–29, 460 S.E.2d 163, 168 (1995)). “A motion to dismiss should be granted, however, ‘where the facts and circumstances warranted by the evidence do no more than raise a suspicion of guilt or conjecture since there would still remain a reasonable doubt as to defendant’s guilt.’ ” State v. Turnage, 362 N.C. 491, 494, 666 S.E.2d 753, 755 (2008) (quoting State v. Stone, 323 N.C. 447, 452, 373 S.E.2d 430, 433 (1988)); see also Sumpter, 318 N.C. at 108, 347 S.E.2d at 399 (“Evidence is not substantial if it arouses only a suspicion about the fact to be proved, even if the suspicion is strong.” (citing State v. Malloy, 309 N.C. 176, 179, 305 S.E.2d 718, 720 (1983))). “Whether the State has presented substantial evidence is a question of law, which we review de novo.” State v. China, 370 N.C. 627, 632, 811 S.E.2d 145, 149 (2018) (citing State v. Cox, 367 N.C. 147, 150–51, 749 S.E.2d 271, 274–75 (2013)). “A criminal conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to do an unlawful act or to do a lawful act in an unlawful way or by unlawful means.” State v. Gibbs, 335 N.C. 1, 47, 436 S.E.2d 321, 347 (1993) (quoting State v. Bindyke, 288 N.C. 608, 615–16, 220 S.E.2d 521, 526 (1975)). “In order to prove conspiracy, the State need not prove an express agreement; evidence tending to show a mutual, implied understanding will suffice.” State v. Winkler, 368 N.C. 572, 575, 780 S.E.2d 824, 827 (2015) (quoting State v. Morgan, 329 N.C. 654, 658, 406 S.E.2d 833, 835 (1991)). Because “[t]he conspiracy is the crime and not its execution,” Gibbs, 335 N.C. -7- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court at 47, 436 S.E.2d at 347 (citation omitted), “[t]he crime of conspiracy is complete when there is a meeting of the minds and no overt act is necessary,” State v. Christopher, 307 N.C. 645, 649, 300 S.E.2d 381, 383 (1983) (citing State v. Gallimore, 272 N.C. 528, 158 S.E.2d 505 (1969)). Nonetheless, there must exist an agreement, and the parties to a conspiracy must “intend[ ] the agreement to be carried out at the time it was made.” State v. Jenkins, 167 N.C. App. 696, 700, 606 S.E.2d 430, 433 (citing State v. Diaz, 155 N.C. App. 307, 319, 575 S.E.2d 523, 531 (2002)), aff’d per curiam, 359 N.C. 423, 611 S.E.2d 833 (2005). Moreover, while a conspiracy can be established through circumstantial evidence, there must be “such evidence to prove the agreement directly or such a state of facts that an agreement may be legally inferred. Conspiracies cannot be established by a mere suspicion, nor does evidence of mere relationship between the parties or association show a conspiracy.” State v. Williams, 255 N.C. 82, 86, 120 S.E.2d 442, 446 (1961) (quoting State v. Phillips, 240 N.C. 516, 521, 82 S.E.2d 762, 766 (1954)). Here, the unlawful act at issue is the alleged violation of N.C.G.S. § 14225.2(a)(2), which, as noted above, provides that an individual “is guilty of harassment of a juror if” the individual “[a]s a result of the prior official action of another as a juror in a . . . trial, threatens in any manner or in any place, or intimidates the former juror or his spouse.” Accordingly, in order to survive a motion to dismiss, the State was required to present substantial evidence showing that -8- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court defendant entered into an agreement with one or more persons to threaten or intimidate a juror from his brother’s trial.3 Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, including the videos from the courthouse and the witness testimony, there is simply insufficient evidence to reasonably infer the existence of any agreement to threaten or intimidate a juror. The evidence shows that at the conclusion of Dan’s sentencing hearing, defendant exited the courtroom from a door off of the lobby (the courtroom door) and was standing alone by a common-area table waiting with his hands in his pockets when the first of the jurors, Rose Nelson, exited from the courtroom door further down the hall (the far door). Nelson testified that as she walked past defendant, heading for the stairwell to exit the building, defendant stated that “he hoped that [she] could live with [her]self because [she] had convicted an innocent man, and then as [she] was making [her] way to the stairs trying to get down the stairs, he was saying something about the crooked Boone police, and he hoped that [she] slept well.” After 3 Defendant argues that in order for N.C.G.S. § 14-225.2(a)(2) to pass constitutional muster, “intimidates” must be defined to require a “true threat,” which are “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” State v. Bishop, 368 N.C. 869, 87 8 n.3, 787 S.E.2d 814, 821 n.3 (2016) (quotingVirginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359 (2003)). We assume, without deciding, that “intimidates” for the purposes of N.C.G.S. § 14-225.2(a)(2) does not require “a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence.” To be clear, we express no opinion on the constitutionality of N.C.G.S. § 14225.2(a)(2) or whether “intimidates” requires a true threat. We hold that, assuming arguendo that the statute should be construed as urged by the State, the State did not present substantial evidence that defendant entered into an agreement with another person to threaten or intimidate a juror. -9- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court Nelson left the courthouse, defendant slowly paced across the room and was waiting by the courtroom door when four more jurors, Kinney Baughman, William Dacchille, Denise Mullis, and Lorraine Ratchford, exited the far door and crossed the lobby to the jury room. According to their testimony, as these jurors walked by defendant, defendant stated to Baughman “that his brother was an innocent man, [and] that [Baughman] had done wrong,” told Dacchille that “[Dan is] an innocent man, he’s an innocent man,” stated to Mullis that she “got it wrong, that [she] made a mistake,” and told Ratchford, “congratulations, you just ruined his life.” As these four jurors were entering the jury room across the lobby, Kathryn, defendant’s mother, and Dan, in that order, exited the courtroom door, approximately one minute and twenty seconds after defendant first left the courtroom. Kathryn was crying as she left the courtroom, and defendant had a brief interaction with her in which he came from behind the door and placed his hand on her head and shoulder to console her as she moved around the door and towards the nearby wall. As this was happening, Dan exited the doorway last and, before having any interaction with defendant, spotted Baughman exiting the jury room. Dan, shaking his head, immediately walked across the lobby toward Baughman and began speaking to him. Defendant and Kathryn then walked across the lobby and were standing behind Dan with defendant’s mother as Baughman exited the jury room and started walking back toward the far door. Kathryn also began speaking to Baughman and, according to Baughman, stated: “you convicted him, you sent him to jail, you ruined his life and -10- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court it’s all your fault.” Dan and Kathryn were both speaking to Baughman as he walked past defendant’s group, and both of them moved back to make way for him to walk toward the hallway. While this was occurring, Dacchille, Mullis, and Ratchford were still in the jury room and could not hear what was being said, except Ratchford heard Kathryn “screaming he’ll never get a job.” Baughman was nearing the hallway and the far door when defendant said something to him, at which point Baughman turned back and engaged with defendant while crossing the lobby again, this time heading for the stairwell. Baughman attempted to explain the jury’s verdict while walking slowly toward the stairwell. Baughmen testified that as “a former professor, [he] like[s] to explain things.” According to Baughman, defendant was not raising his voice but “was clearly upset about the verdict” and defendant’s tone was “not pleasant.” Baughman explained: “Well, it’s firm, but, I mean, he’s not yelling at me here. So the way I recall was, [defendant was saying] my brother was innocent, he’s an innocent man, and, you know, we had done wrong. In this case, you know, I’d done - - you done wrong.” During this discussion, defendant and Kathryn both moved away from Baughman, insuring his path was not blocked, as Baughman headed for the stairwell. The video shows that after Baughman entered the stairwell, defendant walked over to the stairwell twelve seconds later, followed by Dan, their mother, and then Kathryn. Baughman stated that Kathryn was “the one that was really screaming and yelling at me more than anybody else, but they were all pointing their fingers in -11- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court my face as I was sitting down -- I was standing in the stairway and they’re hanging over the railing and telling me I ruined this kid’s life.” Approximately ten or eleven seconds later, defendant’s group returned to where they were initially standing in the lobby. The attention of defendant, Dan, and Kathryn was focused almost exclusively on Baughman from the time he exited the jury room, and neither Dachille nor Ratchford had any more troubling interactions with defendant’s group as they left the jury room and went down the stairs to leave. Finally, the last of the six jurors, Charlotte Lino (Lino), came from the hallway near the far door, crossed the lobby, and started down the stairs, where she encountered Mullis waiting in the stairwell. Lino testified that as she passed defendant’s group, one of them told her “he’ll never get a job, he won’t finish school, and we lie just like the cops do, very intimidating.” Shortly after Lino entered the stairwell, Dan’s attorney exited the courtroom and joined defendant’s group in the lobby, at which point defendant’s group immediately moved towards the stairwell to exit the courthouse. Lino testified that defendant’s group passed Mullis and her on the way down the stairs, that “it was so crammed in on the staircase,” and that defendant’s group was talking to them as they passed, telling them “how bad [they] were.” According to Mullis, as defendant’s group passed them, Dan said “you really blew it,” Kathryn said “he’ll never get a job” in an “angry, sad” tone, and one member of defendant’s group “passed very closely to where somebody was touching [her].” -12- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court Approximately two and one half minutes after defendant first left the courtroom alone and entered the lobby, defendant’s group exited the courthouse. The evidence is almost entirely devoid of any interactions between defendant and Dan or defendant and Kathryn from which the formation of any agreement can be inferred. The State does not identify any substantial evidence regarding defendant’s conduct prior to the incident in the lobby tending to show any agreement with Dan or Kathryn. Regarding the incident itself, apart from defendant’s very brief gesture to console Kathryn, it is not clear that any of the three even made eye contact during the incident, let alone communicated in any manner from which a meeting of the minds can reasonably be inferred. The only clear interaction between these individuals, prior to the arrival of Dan’s attorney, was with defendant’s mother, who at times attempted to keep defendant and Dan from speaking to the jurors and who the State does not allege was a part of any conspiracy. None of the State’s witnesses testified that they heard any statements or saw any actions between defendant and Dan or defendant and Kathryn indicating any agreement to threaten or intimidate a juror. Nonetheless, the State points to the purported “parallel conduct” of defendant, Dan, and Kathryn, contending that “a jury can infer a conspiracy based on highly synchronized, parallel conduct in furtherance of a crime.” We agree with this statement in principle; yet, such an inference would be far stronger where the conduct at issue is more synchronized, more parallel, and more clearly in furtherance of a -13- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court crime. For instance, given that the only evidence of contact with the jurors by defendant, Dan, or Kathryn was during this relatively brief incident in the lobby, and that most of the allegedly unlawful contact with the jurors occurred when defendant was in the lobby alone, before defendant’s group exited the courtroom, the conduct here is not particularly synchronized. Once defendant’s group entered the lobby, the conduct of defendant, Dan, and Kathryn in the lobby while they were waiting for Dan’s attorney was hardly the work of a master plan. Moreover, while defendant was acquitted of the charges of harassment of a juror by threats or intimidation and we express no opinion on the sufficiency of the evidence with respect to those charges, the evidence was far from overwhelming. Put simply, this is not a situation like a drug transaction or a bank robbery, where it is evident that an unlawful act has occurred, and where the degree of coordination associated with those unlawful acts renders an inference of “mutual, implied understanding” between the participants far more reasonable. Winkler, 368 N.C. at 575, 780 S.E.2d at 827 (quoting Morgan, 329 N.C. at 658, 406 S.E.2d at 835).4 4 For example, in State v. Abernathy, the Court determined that there was no “direct evidence that the defendant . . . expressly agreed” to commit a house robbery, but “the circumstantial evidence [was] sufficient to create an inference that [the defendant] knew of an agreement to rob the [victim’s] residence and that there was an implied understanding between him and the others to accomplish this purpose.” 295 N.C. 147, 165, 244 S.E.2d 373, 385 (1978). There, the defendant was with one of the robbers beforehand and asked a witness “if [the witness] wanted to make some money to go check out a place.” Id. Additionally, the evidence showed that the defendant drove the robbers to the house, whereupon he drove by the house one time, turned around at an intersection, and parked at a nearby graveyard, at which point the robbers exited the car with masks, guns and tape and entered the house for thirty minutes to an hour. Id. While the robbers were in the house, the defendant drove up -14- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court The dissent asserts that our analysis “appears . . . to amount to an analysis of the weight that should be given to the State’s evidence,” which is a question for the jury, “rather than to its sufficiency.” The weight of the evidence is, of course, to be determined by the jury, but only when the State has first presented substantial evidence of each element of the offense—that is, evidence from which a rational juror could find the fact to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. See Sumpter, 318 N.C. at 108, 347 S.E.2d at 399 (“Evidence is not substantial if it arouses only a suspicion about the fact to be proved, even if the suspicion is strong.” (citing State v. Malloy, 309 N.C. 176, 179, 305 S.E.2d 718, 720 (1983))).5 Further, contrary to the dissent’s and down the road in front of the house “waiting for the actual robbers in order to assist them in escaping after the robbery was completed.” Id. at 165–66, 244 S.E.2d at 385. 5 The dissent also asserts that our approach is inconsistent with this Court’s decision in State v. Whiteside, in which the Court stated: Direct proof of the charge is not essential, for such is rarely obtainable. It may be, and generally is, established by a number of indefinite acts, each of which, standing alone, might have little weight, but, taken collectively, they point unerringly to the existence of a conspiracy. When resorted to by adroit and crafty persons, the presence of a common design often becomes exceedingly difficult to detect. Indeed, the more skillful and cunning the accused, the less plainly defined are the badges which usually denote their real purpose. Under such conditions, the results accomplished, the divergence of those results from the course which would ordinarily be expected, the situation of the parties, and their antecedent relations to each other, together with the surrounding circumstances, and the inferences legitimately deducible therefrom, furnish, in the absence of direct proof, and often in the teeth of positive testimony to the contrary, ample ground for concluding that a conspiracy exists. -15- STATE V. MYLETT Opinion of the Court assertion, we do not suggest that proof that alleged conspirators committed a crime is necessary to prove conspiracy; rather, we note only that when the State relies on evidence of similar and simultaneous conduct to establish an agreement to commit an unlawful act, the fact that the evidence of such conduct, even where similar, leaves ample questions of whether an unlawful act has even been committed, tends to lessen the reasonableness of any inference from circumstantial evidence that the individuals involved had an agreement to commit an unlawful act—here, an agreement to “threaten” or “intimidate” a juror, as required to support a felony conviction under N.C.G.S. § 14-225.2(a)(2). In sum, we conclude that the evidence, taken in the light most favorable to the State, raises no more than a suspicion or conjecture of defendant’s guilt. As such, the State failed to present substantial evidence that defendant conspired to threaten or intimidate a juror. The trial court therefore erred in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence.