Court Opinion

ID: 9576528
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:25:34.311105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:20.221922
License: Public Domain

Justice EXUM
dissenting.
I cannot subscribe to the majority’s view that the cross-examination of defendant concerning his earlier assaults with a shotgun against Mike Hall and the chief of police, while error, was not reversible error.
That defendant shot Harrell to death is conceded; but the degree of his culpability in doing so, if any, is a close question. His defense was self-defense; and, on the face of it, his version of the incident seems as plausible as, if not more plausible than, the state’s version. According to the state’s witnesses defendant without provocation simply shot deceased to death at defendant’s business establishment in the early evening of 4 July 1984, in the presence of witnesses to whom defendant immediately went and asked to come over and see what he had done. Defendant’s evidence tended to show, in the words of the majority, “that he reasonably felt it necessary to shoot Harrell in order to protect himself from Mr. Harrell, a 6'-3", 280-pound manic depressive who was coming at him through the doorway of his home and business threatening to kill him.” That the deceased was suffering from a manic depressive psychiatric disorder exacerbated by alcohol consumption and that he had a substantial blood alcohol content on the occasion in question was established by disinterested witnesses. Further, the state’s evidence also corroborated defendant’s testimony that the deceased threw a hatchet at him which landed under a sofa in the business establishment. Investigators found the hatchet under the sofa.
Defendant’s admission that Harrell had no weapon at precisely the time defendant fired his shotgun weakens defendant’s case for perfect self-defense. Nevertheless, it would have been well within the realm of reason for the jury to have determined defendant to be guilty of manslaughter or second degree murder. *648The jury might have convicted defendant of manslaughter on the theory that defendant shot in the heat of passion upon adequate provocation or used excessive force under the circumstances. See State v. Wallace, 309 N.C. 141, 305 S.E. 2d 548 (1983). The jury might have determined him guilty of second degree murder on the ground that he shot pursuant to a provocation insufficient to reduce the crime to manslaughter but sufficient to rob it of premeditation and deliberation and reduce it to second degree murder. See State v. Thomas, 118 N.C. 1113, 24 S.E. 431 (1896). I believe that without the challenged cross-examination the jury might well have opted, if not for acquittal, at least for a lesser degree of homicide than first degree murder; therefore, but for this cross-examination there is a “reasonable possibility that . . . a different result would have been reached at trial.” N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) (1983).
The principal reason Rule 608(b) prohibits cross-examination concerning specific acts of misconduct to impeach credibility (unless these acts bear on truthfulness) is the potential such cross-examination presents for undue prejudice, especially for a testifying criminal defendant. Evidence of a criminal defendant’s former misconduct not bearing on truthfulness tends to draw a jury’s attention from the real issues in the case, United States v. Bledsoe, 531 F. 2d 888, 891 (8th Cir. 1976), and may incline a jury to convict simply because defendant is “shown to be a bad man.” State v. Ervin, 340 So. 2d 1379, 1381 (La. 1976). It is “[t]o minimize the possibility of such prejudice to defendant [that] statutes ... exclude” such evidence. Id. “Restrictions on the use of character evidence . . . help prevent juries from convicting defendants for the wrong reasons.” Note, 63 N.C. L. Rev. 535, 543 (1985). “In tacit recognition of the potential for unjustifiable prejudice . . ., [Rule 608(b)] limits” inquiry for impeachment of a witness, including a criminal defendant, to acts of misconduct “probative of truthfulness or untruthfulness.” Crumpler and Widenhouse, “An Analysis of the New North Carolina Evidence Code: Opportunity for Reform,” 20 Wake Forest L. Rev. 1, 44 (1984). I believe it reasonably possible that the cross-examination complained of here fulfilled its potential for prejudice to defendant.
Further, the state argues the evidence of defendant’s past assaultive behavior with a shotgun is substantively admissible because it tends to prove defendant was the aggressor and thereby *649to negate his claim of self-defense. Although the majority correctly rejects this theory of admissibility, it is at least reasonably possible that the jury improperly viewed this evidence as the state contends it should be viewed, and as a result improperly rejected defendant’s claims of self-defense and reduced culpability.
I, therefore, would grant defendant a new trial because of the improper cross-examination.