Court Opinion

ID: 9590789
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:58:25.18634+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:49:26.567302
License: Public Domain

Justice Mitchell
dissenting.
I agree that the trial court erred in allowing the State to impeach the testimony of its witness Marie Crawford by evidence of her prior unsworn statements concerning the whereabouts of the defendant on the morning of the murder in this case. Like the majority, I believe that the “circumstances accompanying the introduction of Marie’s prior unsworn statement provided no assurance . . . that Marie’s testimony was critical to the state’s case . . . .” The State should not have been allowed to impeach Crawford by evidence of those prior unsworn statements.
The majority’s conclusion that the defendant has carried his burden on appeal of showing that the error was prejudicial, however, is unsupported by the record in this case. Instead, it is clear to me that the trial court’s error in allowing the State to impeach its witness by evidence of her prior statements did not affect the outcome at trial. Therefore, I dissent from the holding of the majority awarding the defendant a new trial.
The record on appeal reveals that the State’s case against the defendant was overwhelming. A brief review of just some of the State’s evidence readily reveals that the evidence erroneously admitted to impeach Crawford was harmless. The State’s evidence tended to show that Deborah Sykes was a twenty-six-year-old copy editor for the Winston-Salem Journal-Sentinel. She was raped and stabbed to death at approximately 6:45 a.m. on 10 August 1984 in a field off West End Boulevard a few blocks from the offices of that newspaper. She died as a result of sixteen major stab wounds, at least one of which pierced her heart. Abrasions and tearing in the areas of the victim’s anus and vagina and the *357presence of'sperm in both her anus and vagina indicated that the victim had been sexually assaulted and raped.
Thomas Murphy testified that he was forty-five years old and was employed at Hanes Dye and Finishing Company in Winston-Salem. On 10 August 1984, he left home at approximately 6:15 a.m. to drive to work. While at a traffic light at West End Boulevard, he observed the victim and the defendant, Darryl Eugene Hunt, standing on the sidewalk. He thought they were drunk because they appeared to be leaning on each other. He saw the defendant’s right arm around the neck of the victim and observed that the defendant was holding the victim’s hand with his right hand. Murphy positively identified the two people he saw on that occasion as the victim, Deborah Sykes, and the defendant, Darryl Eugene Hunt. Murphy said that there was no doubt that the defendant was the man he had observed.
Johnny Gray testified that he was walking to a friend’s house at approximately 6:40 a.m. on 10 August 1984. While taking a shortcut near the Crystal Towers, he heard a woman scream. He looked over a fence and saw the defendant on top of a woman beating her. He observed the assault for approximately fifteen seconds, during which time the defendant was sitting on the woman’s stomach as he hit her in the face and chest. Gray could not tell whether the defendant had a knife in his hand. Although the woman struggled to free herself, she could not do so. The defendant had her arms pinned to the ground with his legs, and she could only kick her legs. At that time, the woman did not have any clothing on below her waist. As Gray walked away from the scene, he turned back and saw the defendant running across Cherry Street. As the defendant ran, he tucked his shirt inside his pants. Gray observed that the zipper to the defendant’s pants was down. Gray testified there was no doubt that the defendant was the man he saw.
Gray decided that the best thing he could do was call the police, because he believed the woman was hurt. He went to a telephone booth outside a lounge on Thurman Street where he called the police and told them what he had seen. He used a false name on that occasion, because he did not want to become involved, but later correctly identified himself to the police. He gave the location of the attack on the woman as a field near the Crystal *358Towers behind the downtown fire station. The police dispatcher who received the call testified that she erroneously dispatched a police car to the area of another downtown fire station where nothing was discovered.
Roger Weaver testified that on 10 August 1984 he was on duty as an auditor employed by the Hyatt House, a hotel in downtown Winston-Salem. At approximately 6:45 a.m., Weaver observed the defendant enter the hotel and go directly into the restroom. He had observed the defendant in the hotel on at least three prior occasions when the defendant had asked permission to use the restroom. Although the defendant had asked permission to use the restroom on all prior occasions, he did not request permission on the morning of 10 August 1984. When the defendant did not leave the restroom after what seemed a normal period of time, Weaver had a security guard enter the restroom to ask the defendant to leave. Shortly after the defendant left, Weaver entered the restroom and noticed a reddish-pink substance in the sink. He found bloody paper towels in the trash dispenser in the restroom. Weaver testified that he was positive the defendant was the man he had seen enter the restroom on the morning of 10 August 1984.
In -light of the positive and unequivocal identification of the defendant by three disinterested eyewitnesses, it strains all credulity to assert that the jury gave any significant weight to evidence concerning unsworn pretrial statements by Marie Crawford, a retarded fourteen-year-old who had been a prostitute since she was eleven and who had spent a good part of her life institutionalized in mental health and juvenile detention facilities. Specifically, there is no realistic possibility that, in rejecting the defendant’s alibi evidence, the jury gave any significant weight to the State’s “impeachment” evidence that this retarded child prostitute had said she spent the night of 9-10 August 1984 with the defendant at Motel 6 and that he left in the early morning hours and returned with dirt on his pants and appearing nervous.
It must be borne in mind that where, as here, the error asserted arises other than under the Constitution of the United States, the defendant has the burden of showing that the error was prejudicial and must do so by establishing “a reasonable possibility that, had the error in question not been committed, a *359different result would have been reached at the trial . . . N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) (1988). See also State v. Spruill, 320 N.C. 688, 360 S.E. 2d 667 (1987); State v. DeLeonardo, 315 N.C. 762, 340 S.E. 2d 350 (1986). The majority holds that the defendant has carried this burden. It bases this holding upon its conclusion that, had evidence of the statements by a witness the jury knew was a retarded child prostitute who admitted lying in the past not been introduced, there is a reasonable possibility the jury would have reached a different result. The majority is able to reach this conclusion only by baldly asserting that “the record reflects doubt about the testimony” of each of the disinterested eyewitnesses who testified that they saw the defendant and the victim together at about the time of the murder and, in the case of one eyewitness, while the murder was being committed.
In my view, a fair reading of the record reflects no such “doubt” concerning the testimony of the eyewitnesses. All of the eyewitnesses testified positively and unequivocally during both direct and cross-examination that the defendant was the man they saw at the times in question. Further, the record does not show that the eyewitnesses had any reason to be untruthful. It seems obvious that the jury — as any reasonable person would have— based its rejection of the defendant’s alibi evidence upon the testimony of the disinterested eyewitnesses who observed the defendant and the victim together during the killing or near the time of its commission and not upon the State’s “impeachment” evidence concerning the statements of the retarded child prostitute. The record does not support the conclusion that the jury would have reached a different result at trial, had the evidence of her prior statements not been admitted. Instead, it is clear to me on the record before us that any such conclusion is contrary to reason and common sense. Therefore, I dissent from the holding of the majority awarding this defendant a new trial.
Justice MEYER joins in this dissenting opinion.