Opinion ID: 1227665
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 22

Heading: joint resentencing

Text: Finally, each defendant contends that his rights to due process and to a particularized and individualized consideration by the jury of the appropriateness of the death penalty in his case were violated by the holding of a joint resentencing trial. Defendants point out that the North Carolina death penalty statute, G.S. § 15A-2000, makes no specific reference to the question of whether co-defendants who are tried and convicted at a joint trial should be sentenced at a joint or separate sentencing trial. Defendants further point out that theirs is the first case in which a death penalty was imposed, an appeal heard, and a subsequent joint resentencing trial held. Prior to the first trial, the State moved for joinder pursuant to G.S. § 15A-926. Defendant Oliver objected. The issue was not briefed and apparently not argued before this Court in Oliver I. That opinion makes no reference to the fact that defendants were convicted and sentenced at a joint trial. Thus, at least by implication, we did not disapprove of the joint trial. The issue is properly before us by way of defendant Oliver's objection to a joinder. Should we find error in Oliver's case, the error will be equally applicable to defendant Moore. See State v. Boykin, 307 N.C. 87, 296 S.E.2d 258 (1982) (non-complaining co-defendant's case remanded to prevent manifest injustice where consolidation of cases was found erroneous). While this assignment of error bears serious consideration and raises important questions under G.S. § 15A-2000, we find no error. We begin with the general proposition that pursuant to G.S. § 15A-926(b)(2), the State may move and the Court may permit joinder of charges against two or more defendants for the guilt determination phase of a 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 present case was particularly suited for joinder. The defendants, acting in concert, and both being present, robbed a convenience store, murdering the store attendant and an innocent by-stander. The acts of one were attributable to the other. In order to convict defendant Oliver of the first degree murder of Watts, the attendant, it was necessary to show that the murder was either committed by, or in the actual or constructive presence of Oliver in pursuance of a common plan or purpose. State v. Joyner, 297 N.C. 349, 255 S.E.2d 390 (1979). Defendant Moore's conviction for the first degree murder of Hodge rested on the State's evidence that he and Oliver had formed a common plan to commit a crime and Hodge's murder was a probable consequence thereof. Id. In fact, in Oliver I, this Court considered as frivolous, defendant Moore's contention that the trial judge should have instructed as to him on the offenses of accessory before and accessory after the fact to the crimes of armed robbery and murder. In Oliver I we stated that: There is no evidence here that Moore was an accessory. The evidence shows that both defendants were present at the scene and were acting together in the commission of the armed robbery. The murders occurred in furtherance of their common purpose to commit this crime or as a natural consequence thereof. Where two or more persons `join in a purpose to commit a crime, each of them, if actually or constructively present, is not only guilty as a principal if the other commits that particular crime, but he is also guilty of any other crime committed by the other in pursuance of the common purpose... or as a natural or probable consequence thereof.' State v. Westbrook, 279 N.C. 18, 41-42, 181 S.E.2d 572, 586 (1971), death sentence vacated, 408 U.S. 939 [92 S.Ct. 2873, 33 L.Ed.2d 761 (1972) ] (1972) (emphasis supplied); accord, State v. Lovelace, 272 N.C. 496, 158 S.E.2d 624 (1968). State v. Oliver, 302 N.C. at 55, 274 S.E.2d at 200. We also note that at the guilt phase of the trial, defendants were protected under Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), in that out-of-court statements made by Moore which tended to implicate defendant Oliver were not before the jury. 302 N.C. at 35, 274 S.E.2d at 188 fn. 3. The threshold question, then, is whether, with a view toward the necessity of death qualifying a jury pursuant to G.S. § 15A-2000, a joint trial at the guilt phase is appropriate under any circumstance. [4] Thus, although defendant Moore asserts in his brief that he is not challenging the propriety of the joint trial on guilt or innocence, or even of the joint sentencing hearing held immediately after this trial, but only the propriety of the subsequent joint resentencing trial, we view the issue differently. If the joint trial on guilt or innocence and the first joint sentencing hearing were proper, a joint resentencing hearing, as we will illustrate below, would of necessity, be equally proper. In arguing that these defendants were not prejudiced by the trial court's decision to permit a joint sentencing hearing in the first instance, the State points out that defendant Moore was given a life sentence for his conviction in the Hodge murder. Clearly the jury gave individual consideration to each defendant's participation in the murders. While the argument is persuasive, it is not determinative of the issue. As defendant Moore's participation in the Hodge murder was not an issue at resentencing, the State's argument is, at best, only an illustration that a joint sentencing hearing does not preclude individualized consideration of the appropriateness of the death penalty in each case. We focus on each defendant's arguments in support of his contention that he was prejudiced by a joint resentencing hearing. In so doing, we note first that neither defendant attempts to argue that there is a greater need for separate sentencing trials at resentencing than at an original sentencing. Secondly, defendants' arguments in support of separate resentencing hearings are equally applicable to sentencing in the first instance, and it is these arguments that we now reject. The thrust of these arguments is that pursuant to G.S. § 15A-2000, a defendant is constitutionally entitled to individualized consideration of his character, his record, and his particular acts. Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978). Thus, argue defendants, a jury should not be allowed to hear the evidence admissible only against a co-defendant. Both defendants implore: As difficult as it is for a defendant to defend his life against the state, no defendant should have to fight for his life against a co-defendant as well as the state. We are further asked, in evaluating this question, to try to picture what the proceeding below would have been like had each defendant been separately sentenced. Defendants then state that [i]t would certainly not be stretching a point to say that the proceeding would have been far different and far fairer. To illustrate, defendant Oliver argues that the aggravating factors that the murder of Allen Watts was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel and that it was committed for the purpose of avoiding a lawful arrest were erroneously submitted in his case, having been based on hearsay evidence admitted against defendant Moore. As noted earlier in this opinion, we agree that the submission of these factors, at sentencing, with respect to Oliver's individual culpability for the murder of Watts was error. The fact that the statement was admitted as a basis for submitting an aggravating factor against Oliver at both the sentencing and re-sentencing hearings does not per se render the joint trial so prejudicial as to require separate trials. The error lies not in granting the State's motion for a joint trial, but in basing an aggravating factor on evidence erroneously admitted as to the co-defendant Oliver. Defendant Moore contends that the Hodge killing should not even have been mentioned before the jury at re-sentencing, where the only issue as to Moore was the penalty for the murder of Allen Watts. He states that the jury was given the impression that they were punishing defendant Moore for both the Hodge and Watts murders. At the initial sentencing hearing, the jury determined that Moore's participation in the Hodge murder was relatively minor, and he received a life sentence. At resentencing, the jury made appropriate findings in aggravation and mitigation, none of which included a consideration of the Hodge murder. Moore's own statements, coupled with his active part in the Watts' murder, were sufficient to support the jury's decision. In fact, in response to the prosecutor's request at resentencing that the trial judge integrate a standard charge on acting in concert into the charge on the aggravating and mitigating factors, the trial judge astutely commented: I don't think we have to. I'm a little scary on it. I do intend to tell them right at the outset, `Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, you simply are not concerned with guilt or innocence. That has already been determined. Oliver is guilty of the murder of Watts and guilty of the murder of Hodge. Moore is guilty of the murder of Watts. He is not involved, as far as you are concerning (sic), in the murder of Hodge.' It can be seen from the foregoing that the evils of which these defendants now complain were not peculiar to the resentencing trial, but were present at the original trial. That is, if facts were properly before the jury at the guilt phase, they were properly before the jury at sentencing and therefore at resentencing. See G.S. § 15A-2000(a)(3). By their arguments, each defendant would ask that his respective culpability be viewed in a vacuum, somehow isolated and unconnected to the acts of the other. Yet, defendants' culpability for these crimes is inextricably intertwined and all evidence relevant to the circumstances of these crimes was properly before the jury at the guilt phase. We have held that the State is entitled to rely upon evidence which it produced at the guilt phase of the trial at the sentencing hearing. G.S. § 15A-2000(a)(3); State v. Hutchins, 303 N.C. 321, 279 S.E.2d 788 (1981), or at re-sentencing. To summarize: Inasmuch as G.S. § 15A-2000 provides that the same jury may determine both guilt and sentence in a capital case; and accepting the State's argument that a jury, properly instructed, can in fact give individualized consideration to each defendant's culpability, and did so at the first sentencing hearing, we hold that defendants were not prejudiced by a joint trial in the first instance. With respect to resentencing, defendants have failed to show any greater prejudice by the holding of a joint resentencing trial. Defendants, moreover, are entitled to no greater advantage than they enjoyed at the initial sentencing. This is so even when, as the circumstances present themselves in this case, a jury has previously determined that one defendant is to be given a life sentence in one murder. That is, there is absolutely no basis for finding as a matter of law, or on these facts, that a jury will impose a sentence of death based on a codefendant's participation in a murder for which, he alone, must be sentenced. This Court is charged with the duty of carefully reviewing every capital case in which a sentence of death is imposed, see State v. Johnson, 298 N.C. 47, 257 S.E.2d 597 (1979) (decision of the jury should be searchingly reviewed to insure absence of unfairness, arbitrariness, or caprice). It is not our role to second-guess a jury before whom evidence is properly presented and which has been properly instructed. Finally, we have relied in part on the recent Supreme Court decision in Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 102 S.Ct. 3368, 73 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1982). That case involved a joint trial in a first degree murder case which, like the case before us, was tried on a felony-murder theory. Enmund was tried and sentenced jointly with his co-defendant. On appeal to the Supreme Court, Enmund argued successfully that in order to justify the imposition of the death penalty, the jury must consider each co-defendant's individual culpability in the murder; that is, whether a defendant who participated in a robbery actually killed, attempted to kill, or intended the death of the victim or that lethal force be employed. Implied in Enmund is approval of joint sentencing hearings with the caveat that there by individualized consideration given to each defendant's culpability.