Court Opinion

ID: 9575862
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:18:03.082139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:11.685091
License: Public Domain

Justice WHICHARD
dissenting.
While I agree that it was error to admit the prior inconsistent statements as substantive evidence under Rule 804, I do not agree that their admission was harmful to defendant. Had the statements not been admitted, there is no reasonable possibility of a different outcome. N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) (1988). The jury, which was instructed properly as to the only defense, that of accident, was equally likely to reject that defense with or without the inadmissible evidence.
The only evidence placed before the jury through the improperly admitted statements which would not otherwise have been before it is the following: the portion in which Tyrone reports that defendant said, “I ought to kill you,” while he pointed the gun at Ford; the portions in which both boys described how defendant pushed Jason out of the way, took one step back, aimed the gun at Ford, and shot him in the head; and the portions in which both boys recounted that defendant then cocked the rifle again and pointed it toward the felled victim. To determine the harmfulness of this evidence, it must be considered in the context of the properly admitted, inculpatory evidence that supports the verdict. That evidence was as follows:
Daisy Miller, defendant’s estranged wife, testified that shortly before the shooting, during an argument about her dating the vie*65tim, defendant told her, “You think you’re going to be with him, but you’re not.”
Tyrone Miller, defendant’s son, testified that after defendant accused Ford of ruining his family and taking his sons, and before he left in his truck, threatening to return as he left, defendant said to Tyrone, “I’m going to kill him [Ford].” Tyrone then testified that defendant returned, that Tyrone saw a gun in the truck, that defendant pulled the gun while asking Ford why he was ruining his family, and that defendant raised the gun again and pushed Jason away when Jason hit at the gun. Finally, Tyrone testified that when he called his mother after the shooting, he told her, “Dad shot Bogey [Ford].” All of this testimony was elicited properly without reference to Tyrone’s pretrial statement.
When Tyrone stopped short of recounting how defendant aimed the gun, the State confronted him with the statement he made to the police the evening of the shooting. Though Tyrone denied saying certain things to the prosecutor, he admitted that he signed the statement as a true and accurate version of what he told the police and that he recently had reviewed the statement with the prosecutor. It was at this point that the erroneous (for substantive purposes) admission of the prior inconsistent statement occurred.
The State also properly elicited damaging testimony from Jason Miller, defendant’s other son, before introducing his pretrial statement. Jason testified that he heard defendant arguing with the victim about Daisy and the family, that he saw a gun in defendant’s hand, and that defendant pointed the gun like a finger at Ford. Jason also admitted reviewing his statement right before the trial.
Two other witnesses for the State testified that they saw defendant get out of the truck with a gun. One admitted she saw Jason and defendant struggling over the gun after the victim had been shot.
Officer Maxwell explained to the jury that to fire the gun in question, it first has to be cocked. Through Maxwell, the State also properly introduced defendant’s statement, given on the night of the shooting, that he normally did not carry his rifle in his truck, and his spontaneous statement, “I did what I done, they can put me in the gas chamber or in the electric chair, but I’d do it again.”
*66Considering the weight and consistency of the various witnesses’ testimony, the evidence that the rifle could not have been fired without first being cocked, and defendant’s own incriminating statements, I would hold that defendant has failed to meet his burden of showing that “there is a reasonable possibility that, had the error in question not been committed, a different result would have been reached at the trial . . . N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) (1988). Premeditation and deliberation are not ordinarily susceptible to proof by direct evidence and, therefore, must usually be proved by circumstantial evidence. State v. Hamlet, 312 N.C. 162, 170, 321 S.E.2d 837, 843 (1984). Given the ample circumstantial evidence leading almost inexorably to a conclusion that the killing was premeditated and deliberated, and given that the jury was properly instructed on the only defense — that of accident —and rejected it, I cannot agree that there is a reasonable possibility the jury would have reached a different verdict if it had not heard the statements of Tyrone and Jason.
Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the holding awarding a new trial.
Justice MEYER joins in this dissenting opinion.