Court Opinion

ID: 9581708
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:17:41.795857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:12.066839
License: Public Domain

FRYE, J.,
dissenting as to sentence.
Defendant argues that his death sentence must be vacated because the trial judge erred by submitting the “course of conduct” aggravating circumstance to the jury. Furthermore, because this was the only aggravating circumstance submitted and found, defendant argues a sentence of life imprisonment must be imposed by this Court. I agree.
The course of conduct aggravating circumstance, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(ll), is as follows:
The murder for which the defendant stands convicted was part of a course of conduct in which the defendant engaged and which included the commission by the defendant of other crimes of violence against another person or persons.
N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(11). In State v. Williams, 305 N.C. 656, 292 S.E.2d 243, cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1056, 74 L. Ed. 2d 622 (1982), the first case in which this Court reviewed this aggravating circumstance, we quoted with approval the following jury instruction:
*514Now, ladies and gentlemen, the murder of Eric Joines by the defendant was part of such a course of conduct if it and other crimes of violence were parts of a pattern of intentional acts directed toward the perpetration of such crimes of violence which establishes that there existed in the mind of the defendant a plan, scheme, or design involving both the murder of Eric Joines and other crimes of violence.
Id. at 685, 292 S.E.2d at 261. The pattern jury instruction for this aggravating circumstance is essentially the same, stating that a murder is part of a course of conduct “if it and the other crimes of violence are part of a pattern of the same or similar acts which establish that there existed in the mind of the defendant a plan, scheme, system or design involving both the murder and those other crimes of violence.” N.C.P.I. —Crim. 150.10(11) (1990). Judge Herring’s instruction to the jury in this case tracked the pattern instruction. Thus, not only must there be additional acts of violence, but the State’s evidence must demonstrate that there existed in the mind of the defendant a plan, scheme, system or design involving both the murder and another crime of violence.
Since the Williams decision in 1982, we have reviewed at least thirteen cases in which this aggravating circumstance was submitted to the jury, and in every case except one the “other crime of violence” occurred contemporaneously with or within hours of the murder for which the defendant was being prosecuted. E.g., State v. Hill, 331 N.C. 387, 417 S.E.2d 765 (1992) (defendant killed his son, and immediately thereafter assaulted his wife who tried to help her son); State v. Roper, 328 N.C. 337, 402 S.E.2d 600, cert. denied, — U.S. —, 116 L. Ed. 2d 232 (1991) (woman immediately kidnapped from car and raped after man with whom she was driving was killed by defendant); State v. McLaughlin, 323 N.C. 68, 372 S.E.2d 49 (1988), sentence vacated, 494 U.S. 1021, 108 L. Ed. 2d 601 (1990), on remand, 330 N.C. 66, 408 S.E.2d 732 (1991) (child killed within hours of her mother’s death after she awoke while defendant was disposing of her mother’s body); State v. Rogers, 316 N.C. 203, 341 S.E.2d 713 (1986), overruled in part on other grounds, State v. Vandiver, 321 N.C. 570, 364 S.E.2d 373 (1988) (immediately after killing victim, defendant fired gun at another); State v. Noland, 312 N.C. 1, 320 S.E.2d 642 (1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1230, 84 L. Ed. 2d 369 (1985) (defendant killed sister and father of estranged wife in rapid succession); State v. Craig, 308 N.C. 446, 302 S.E.2d 740, cert. denied, 464 U.S. 908, *51578 L. Ed. 2d 247 (1983) (woman killed and husband beaten within moments of each other); Williams, 305 N.C. 656, 292 S.E.2d 243 (service station employee and convenience store employee killed within hours of each other during back-to-back robberies). In all these cases, we found no error in the trial court’s submission of the course of conduct aggravating circumstance to the jury.
The one case which does not fit this pattern is State v. Price, 326 N.C. 56, 388 S.E.2d 84, sentence vacated, — U.S. —, 112 L. Ed. 2d 7 (1990). In Price, the other crimes of violence, arson and hostage taking, occurred five days after the murder for which the defendant was being prosecuted. In order to determine whether these subsequent crimes of violence were part of a course of conduct, we said that it was necessary to consider a “number of factors, among them the temporal proximity of the events to one another, a recurrent modus operandi and motivation by the same reasons.” Id. at 81, 388 S.E.2d at 98. We concluded that all the crimes of violence were “elements of a five-day rampage,” evoking a common modus operandi and motivation. Id. at 82, 388 S.E.2d at 98. Therefore, based on the proximity in time, five days, and the common modus operandi and motivation, we held that it was not improper for the trial judge to submit the course of conduct aggravating circumstance to the jury. Id. at 83, 388 S.E.2d at 99.
An overview of our cases reflects this Court’s realization that the closer the incidents of violence are connected in time, the more likely that the violent acts are part of a plan, scheme, system or design which existed in the mind of the defendant. Conversely, the further apart the violent acts are temporally, the more unlikely it is that the crimes are somehow related, and the more incumbent it is upon a court to carefully consider other factors, such as modus operandi and motivation, in determining whether the acts of violence are part of a course of conduct. Thus, in order to find course of conduct a court must consider the circumstances surrounding the acts of violence and discern some transactional connection, common scheme or psychological thread which ties them together. See e.g., Vandiver, 321 N.C. 570, 364 S.E.2d 373 (defendant immediately shoots at his intended victim after killing wrong person by mistake); Noland, 312 N.C. 1, 320 S.E.2d 642 (defendant, angry at his estranged wife, kills his father-in-law and sister-in-law in rapid succession); Williams, 305 N.C. 656, 292 S.E.2d 243 (defendant kills two clerks during armed robbery spree).
*516The State asks this Court to reject the approach we have followed since Williams and find that neither a common scheme nor plan nor temporal proximity is required for the course of conduct aggravating circumstance. All that needs to be shown, argues the State, is a “pattern or course of violence overtime.” To support its position, the State cites State v. Avery, 315 N.C. 1, 337 S.E.2d 786 (1985), a noncapital case involving a nonstatutory aggravating factor. In Avery, we approved the trial judge’s finding of a nonstatutory aggravator that defendant engaged in a pattern or course of violent conduct which included the commission of other crimes of violence against other persons. Id. at 35-36, 137 S.E.2d at 805-06. We said that, in addition to the violent conduct for which the defendant was on trial, “there was evidence that prior to that date defendant had hit several members of his family during attacks of rage, shot a gun while angry at one of his neighbors, hit his boss at another company where he once worked, and was involved in two fist fights.” Id. at 35, 337 S.E.2d at 806. We did not set out a time frame for these other acts of violence.
The precise issue in Avery was not whether it was appropriate for the trial judge to find this factor based on the evidence before him; instead, the issue was whether the trial court ran afoul of N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.4(a)(l) by basing two aggravating factors upon the same evidence. The defendant argued that the course of violent conduct factor and another factor — that the defendant was a dangerous and mentally abnormal person — were both predicated upon the fact that the defendant suffered from a mental illness at the time he committed the crimes for which he was convicted. Id. at 34, 337 S.E.2d at 805. We held that the two factors were based on different evidence, citing the defendant’s other acts of violence to support the course of violent conduct factor. Thus, our attention in Avery was not squarely focused on the exact issue before us today. Furthermore, in Avery, we were dealing with a nonstatutory aggravating factor under the Fair Sentencing Act which the trial judge found on the particular facts of the case before him. Our capital cases interpreting N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(ll) were neither considered nor relied upon in reaching our decision on this issue in Avery. I therefore believe Avery should be restricted to its own facts, and that we should reject the State’s invitation to alter the way we have been analyzing death cases under N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(ll) for the past decade.
*517After a careful review of the record in this case, I find only one of three factors discussed in Price to be present. Furthermore, there is no credible evidence that the two murders were part of a connected series of circumstances; there appears no transactional connection between them. Karen’s murder, the “other crime of violence” which the trial judge found to be part of a course of conduct, occurred twenty-six months after Teresa’s murder, the crime for which defendant was convicted. During this period of more than two years, there was no pattern of violence by defendant, such as the “five-day rampage” in Price. See Price, 326 N.C. at 82, 388 S.E.2d at 98. While defendant’s modus operandi was the same in both murders, I agree with defendant’s appellate attorney that there is no credible evidence to suggest that at the time defendant killed Teresa, he had in mind a plan, scheme, or design which involved the death of Karen more than two years later.1 Even the prosecutor did not suggest that defendant’s motivations for the two murders were the same. During her closing argument, prosecutor Powell suggested to jurors that defendant killed Teresa out of anger for the death of his son Clifford; she suggested that defendant killed Karen out of concern that she would take custody of their children and out of anger for Karen having sworn out a nonsupport warrant against him.
The ugly reality is this defendant brutally murdered two sisters two years apart for reasons we may never know. As much as we deplore his actions, the State has not demonstrated that these acts of violence were tied together in such a way as to permit the trial judge to submit the course of conduct aggravating circumstance for the jury’s consideration. I would therefore hold that the trial judge erred by allowing the jury to consider N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(ll) in aggravation of the murder for which defendant was convicted.
*518My conclusion that the course of conduct circumstance was erroneously submitted to the jury finds support in Judge Farmer’s decision in Cummings I to sever defendant’s trials for the murders of Karen and Teresa. Judge Farmer ruled that, because of the two-year span between the murders, the “transactional connection” between the two murders was not sufficient to allow the cases to be tried together. Cummings I, 326 N.C. at 310, 389 S.E.2d at 73.
Finally, given the majority opinion, I feel compelled to emphasize the well-settled maxim of capital punishment jurisprudence that aggravating circumstances must be narrowly construed to limit discretion “ ‘so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.’ ” See Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 874, 77 L.Ed. 2d 235, 248 (1983) (quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189, 49 L.Ed. 2d 859, 883 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell and Stevens, JJ.); see also State v. Oliver, 302 N.C. 28, 61, 274 S.E.2d 183, 204 (1981) (“Where it is doubtful whether a particular aggravating circumstance should be submitted, the doubt should be resolved in favor of defendant.”); State v. Goodman, 298 N.C. 1, 30, 257 S.E.2d 569, 588 (1979) (when considering the submission of aggravating circumstances, “[w]e believe that error in cases in which a person’s life is at stake, if there be any, should be made in the defendant’s favor”). Thus, even assuming this to be a “close call,” we must interpret our death penalty statute narrowly to stay within the boundaries of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution.
Because this was the only aggravating circumstance found by the jury, defendant’s death sentence must be vacated and a sentence of life imprisonment imposed. N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(d)(2) (1988) (Supreme Court shall vacate death sentence and impose life sentence “upon a finding that the record does not support the jury’s findings of any aggravating circumstance or circumstances upon which the sentencing court based its sentence of death”); see State v. McDowell, 329 N.C. 363, 407 S.E.2d 200 (1991); State v. Hamlet, 312 N.C. 162, 321 S.E.2d 837 (1984); State v. Beal, 311 N.C. 555, 319 S.E.2d 557 (1984).
Although not argued by counsel for either side, I feel compelled to address an apparent conflict in our cases dealing with the proper resolution of situations such as this in which the sole aggravating circumstance found by the jury is subsequently found by this Court *519to have been improperly submitted.2 As noted above, we have held on at least three occasions that N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(d)(2) requires this Court to impose a sentence of life imprisonment in lieu of the death penalty when we determine that the sole aggravating circumstance found by the juror was improperly submitted by the trial court. McDowell, 329 N.C. at 390, 407 S.E.2d at 215; Hamlet, 312 N.C. at 162, 321 S.E.2d at 847; Beal, 311 N.C. at 566, 319 S.E.2d at 563. These cases are in contrast to State v. Silhan, 302 N.C. 223, 275 S.E.2d 450 (1981), where we remanded for a new sentencing proceeding after concluding that the sole aggravating circumstance had been improperly submitted. Id. at 271, 275 S.E.2d at 483.
In Silhan, our analysis centered on the double jeopardy implications of remanding for a new sentencing proceeding after finding that the sole aggravating circumstance had been improperly submitted. Id. at 266-70, 275 S.E.2d at 480-83. We concluded that double jeopardy considerations would not preclude a new sentencing proceeding and that this Court should remand “if there are aggravating circumstances which would not be constitutionally or legally proscribed at the new hearing.” Id. at 270, 275 S.E.2d at 482. We then held that an aggravating circumstance would not be so proscribed at the new hearing if “(1) there was evidence to support it at the hearing appealed from; and (2) it was not submitted to the jury [during the first hearing] or, if submitted, the jury found it to have existed; and (3) there is no other legal impediment (such as the felony murder merger rule) to its use.” Id. at 270-71, 275 S.E.2d at 482-83. In contrast to our later cases, however, we did not in Silkan consider the effect of N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(d)(2) in our analysis. See also, State v. Stanley, 310 N.C. 332, 346, 312 S.E.2d 393, 401 (1984) (although citing N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(d)(2), we also cited Silhan and held that a sentence of life imprisonment must be imposed only because “there is no evidence in the case to support any aggravating circumstance”).
I conclude that, notwithstanding the double jeopardy analysis in Silhan, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(d)(2) requires this Court to impose *520a sentence of life imprisonment in lieu of the death penalty in any case in which the sole aggravating circumstance found by the jury is subsequently found by this Court to have been improperly submitted. As noted in footnote two, the same result would follow when the jury finds two or more aggravating circumstances and this Court finds that the trial court erred in submitting each and every one.3
In conclusion, I agree with the majority in finding no error in defendant’s conviction for first-degree murder and in concluding that defendant’s death sentence must be vacated due to McKoy error. However, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the § 15A-2000(e)(ll) “course of conduct” aggravating circumstance was properly submitted to the jury. I conclude that this aggravating circumstance was improperly submitted to the jury and, since this was the sole aggravating circumstance found by the jury, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(d)(2) requires this Court to vacate the death sentence and sentence defendant to imprisonment in the State’s prison for the remainder of his natural life. That is my vote.
Chief Justice Exum joins in this dissenting opinion.

. Although former prison inmate Fred Jacobs testified that he was told by defendant that defendant killed the sisters because they “had ripped him off on a cocaine deal,” the prosecution did not actively pursue that theory. During her closing argument to the jury, prosecutor Powell did not even mention Jacobs’ testimony concerning the alleged drug deal. Furthermore, the State on appeal does not argue that the sisters were killed because of a drug deal gone bad. Finally, had the drug deal been the motivation behind both murders, why were they committed twenty-six months apart? Common sense dictates that both murders would have been committed around the same time had they both been motivated by anger over the same botched drug deal.

. The same situation would be presented were we to find that both of two aggravating circumstances or all of three or more aggravating circumstances presented to the jury had been improperly submitted. Stated differently, where every aggravating circumstance found by the jury is subsequently found by this Court to have been improperly submitted, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(d)(2) requires that a sentence of life imprisonment be imposed in lieu of the death penalty.

. Thus, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(d)(2) would not require this Court to impose a life sentence in lieu of the death penalty where, for example, two aggravating circumstances are found by the jury, and this Court finds that only one was improperly submitted.