Court Opinion

ID: 9608709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:16:20.209633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:07:43.657379
License: Public Domain

Justice MITCHELL
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority’s conclusions and holdings that the convictions of the defendant for murder in the first degree and for discharging a firearm into occupied property were without error.
I dissent from Part XI of the opinion of the majority, in which it concludes that the trial court erred in denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss the charge of attempted armed robbery and from the holding of the majority vacating the defendant’s conviction for that offense. I believe that the evidence to support the defendant’s conviction for attempted armed robbery was substantial and that the trial court properly denied his motion to dismiss.
Where there is substantial evidence of each element of the offense charged and that the defendant is the perpetrator, the trial court must deny the defendant’s motion to dismiss the charge for insufficiency of evidence. State v. Bonney, 329 N.C. 61, 77, 405 S.E.2d 145, 154 (1991).
Substantial evidence is “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” State v. Smith, 300 N.C. 71, 78-79, 265 S.E.2d 164, 169 (1980). The term “substantial evidence” simply means “that the evidence *392must be existing and real, not just seeming or imaginary.” State v. Powell, 299 N.C. 95, 99, 261 S.E.2d 114, 117 (1980).
Id., 405 S.E.2d at 154 (quoting State v. Vause, 328 N.C. 231, 236, 400 S.E.2d 57, 61 (1991)).
Evidence was introduced in the present case tending to show that the defendant confessed to shooting and killing the victim, Doris Gillie. The majority concludes, however, that there was no substantial evidence tending to show that the defendant did so during an attempted armed robbery. I do not agree.
The evidence at trial tended to show that Lee Percell and Eric Jeffrey were with the defendant shortly before the victim was killed on the evening of 19 August 1987. The defendant had been showing his pistol to the residents of a group home, and Jeffrey and Percell had walked away. The defendant caught up with them and engaged them in conversation. Jeffrey testified at trial that the defendant asked him and Percell if they were “down to make money.” When Jeffrey said “no,” the defendant called him “chicken” and otherwise verbally abused him. Percell testified that during the same conversation, the defendant stated he was going to “burn” somebody. The evidence further tended to show that the defendant concluded his conversation with the two men and walked toward the Durham Gospel Center. About five minutes later, the two men heard the sound of gunshots.
The evidence also tended to show that the victim, Doris Gillie, had stayed behind after evening prayer service at the Durham Gospel Center to talk with other congregants. She left later and went to her car in the parking lot. Another congregant, Eddie Sarvis, went to the parking lot at the same time as the victim. As Sarvis left the parking lot, he saw the victim’s headlights behind him. He heard a shot, which he mistook for the victim’s car misfiring, and continued to drive away. He then heard three more shots in quick succession, however, and immediately returned to the parking lot. He found the victim in the driver’s seat of her car fatally wounded. The doors were locked, and the transmission indicator revealed that the car was still in the “park” position. Sarvis was able to reach through the shattered window by the driver’s seat and unlock and open the door. The victim lapsed into unconsciousness and died shortly after she was taken to a nearby hospital. An officer who arrived at the scene after the murder found the victim’s *393purse on the front seat of her car, but he was able to find it there in the dark only by the use of a flashlight.
I believe that the foregoing evidence would support reasonable inferences by the jury to the effect that, after his statements to Jeffrey and Percell as to whether they wanted to “make” money and that he was going to “burn” someone, the defendant carried through on his stated intent. A jury could reasonably find that he then went directly to the Durham Gospel Center and attempted to rob the first departing congregant he came upon.
The fact that after the murder the victim’s purse was found in her car by an officer using a flashlight was some evidence tending to support the view that the defendant did not intend to rob her. However, a “trial court is not required to determine that the evidence excluded every reasonable hypothesis of innocence prior to denying a defendant’s motion to dismiss.” State v. Powell, 299 N.C. 95, 101, 261 S.E.2d 114, 118 (1980). Substantial evidence tended to support a reasonable finding — not a mere suspicion — that the defendant shot and killed the victim while attempting to satisfy his expressly stated desires to “make” money and to “burn” someone. The evidence also tended to support findings that he fled before completing the robbery he was attempting because he found the driver’s side door of the car locked, could not see the purse on the seat, but could see Eddie Sarvis coming to assist the victim. In fact, such findings would seem more reasonable to me than the only reasonable findings to the contrary — that the defendant simply strolled into a church parking lot after evening prayer service, shot and killed one congregant previously unknown to him, and then left the scene.
The foregoing evidence was substantial evidence tending to show that the defendant attempted an armed robbery of the victim; other evidence may have tended to show that he did not. However, “contradictions and discrepancies are for the jury to resolve and do not warrant dismissal. . . .” Id. at 99, 261 S.E.2d at 117. Instead, it must be remembered that:
When the motion . . . calls into question the sufficiency of ... evidence, the question for the Court is whether a reasonable inference of defendant’s guilt may be drawn from the circumstances. If so, it is for the jury to decide whether the facts, taken singly or in combination, satisfy them beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is actually guilty.
*394Id., 261 S.E.2d 117 (emphasis added) (quoting State v. Rowland, 263 N.C. 353, 358, 139 S.E.2d 661, 665 (1965)). Here, there was substantial evidence tending to show that the defendant killed his victim while attempting an armed robbery. Therefore, the trial court was correct in submitting that evidence to the jury to determine what it actually proved or failed to prove —a question of fact exclusively for the jury. The trial court did not err in denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss the charge of attempted armed robbery for insufficiency of evidence.
For the foregoing reasons, I also dissent from Part XII of the opinion of the majority, in which the majority concludes that, due to the insufficiency of evidence to support a conviction for attempted armed robbery, the evidence also was insufficient to support the aggravating circumstance that the capital felony was committed while the defendant was engaged in an attempt to commit robbery. N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(5) (1988). Accordingly, I further dissent from the majority’s holding that, since no other aggravating circumstance was submitted to the jury or supported by evidence, the sentence of death against the defendant must be vacated and a sentence of life imprisonment imposed.