Court Opinion

ID: 9585893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:04:52.185254+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:16.501732
License: Public Domain

Justice ExuM
dissenting.
In holding that evidence regarding the Makas incident is admissible, the majority applies an exception to the general rule that evidence of other criminal acts is inadmissible. Specifically, the majority relies upon the exception which allows the use of “other crimes” evidence to help establish defendant’s identity through a common modus operandi in both incidents. The majority properly states this exception but, in my view, misapplies it on the facts before us.
The majority refers to a number of similarities between the two incidents, including the time when each attack occurred, that *380the perpetrator in each incident was a “jogger,” that both attacks occurred in a grassy area, and that the perpetrator made similar statements to both victims. A closer review of the record dispels the first two of these alleged similarities, and the remaining ones do not support admission of the evidence.
The majority describes the time of both attacks as being similar since they took place during “non-daylight hours.” Actually the incident involving Makas occurred at approximately 11:15 p.m. The incident involving Pruitt occurred between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m. Pruitt testified that it was beginning to get light when defendant attacked him. I conclude the two attacks did not occur at similar times.
The majority also relies upon each victim’s identification of the perpetrator as a “jogger.” Pruitt testified that he first saw defendant when defendant came jogging up the street. Pruitt stated defendant was wearing a T-shirt and cut-off shorts and had a towel around his neck, which defendant used to wipe his forehead as he stopped near Pruitt. Pruitt’s testimony clearly identifies the person who attacked him as having been jogging immediately before the attack.
On the other hand, Makas testified that as he was walking along the street toward a convenience store, defendant drove past him in a van. Makas indicated defendant’s van passed him three or four times. When Makas approached the convenience store, he noticed defendant sitting in the van in the parking lot. After Makas left the convenience store and began walking back down the road, he heard defendant “jogging” up behind him. When defendant came alongside Makas, they began to walk together along the street. Although Makas used the word “jogging” in describing how he heard defendant approach him, his testimony suggests that defendant merely ran from the van at the convenience store in an effort to catch up with Makas, rather than that defendant was actually jogging at the time. Makas did not indicate how defendant was dressed. Officer Hogan, who apprehended defendant shortly after the incident involving Makas, testified that he did not remember how defendant was clothed that night. It seems reasonable to believe that had defendant been dressed for jogging at almost midnight, Officer Hogan might have had a clearer recollection of how he was clothed.
*381The majority’s conclusion that the perpetrator of each incident was a jogger rests, I believe, on unwarranted and unjustifiable extrapolations from the testimony offered below.
Finally, the majority suggests that there were similarities in the place where the two attacks occurred and in the statements made by the perpetrator to each victim. The majority notes that each attack took place in a grassy area. This “similarity” essentially boils down to a recognition that both attacks occurred outside. This fact adds nothing unique to the attacks which suggests that the perpetrator of one is likely to be the perpetrator of the other. Quite simply, the fact that each perpetrator placed his victim in the grass as opposed to the sidewalk or street adds little, if any, support to the contention that the same person committed both offenses.
Likewise, the fact that both victims were told to be quiet and that they would not be hurt does not establish a unique, or even unusual, pattern, or modus operandi, of a sex offender. Victims are frequently given such orders both to prevent the perpetrator’s detection and to encourage their submission.
The majority, I fear, strains at the facts to make these two incidents seem similar, when the incidents actually are quite dissimilar. Makas described the attack on him as “violent.” He said defendant “grabbed him,” they struggled and defendant tried to pull his pants down. Makas said, “Let me go,” several times and defendant said, “All right. You go this way and I’ll go that way.” Pruitt, on the other hand, indicated that defendant was not violent toward him, but merely placed a towel around his mouth and carried him to the place where he was sexually abused. I recognize that Pruitt was younger and smaller than Makas. But these facts together with the manner of the assailant’s approach and nature of his attacks nevertheless emphasize the dissimilarities, rather than the similarities, of the two incidents.
In short, the two incidents were not sufficiently similar to allow introduction of the evidence of the second incident to identify defendant, by a common modus operandi as the perpetrator of the other incident. Unless the similarities are more striking than they are here, one incident has no probative value on the issue of the perpetrator’s identity in the other incident. I believe admission of the Makas incident was error requiring a new trial.
*382I also dissent from the majority’s determination that defendant’s confession was admissible.
After defendant had asserted his right to silence and his right to counsel, the officers took defendant to the clerk’s office where they proceeded to obtain an arrest warrant. During this procedure Officer Dalton said to defendant, “Be sure to tell your attorney that you had the opportunity to help yourself and didn’t.” Approximately five minutes later, after a brief exchange between defendant and Officer Dalton, defendant indicated that he would make a statement. His confession followed. Defendant’s confession was clearly on this record the product of Officer Dalton’s statement. There is nothing in the record to indicate that it could have been the product of anything else.
When a confession follows a promise of leniency, the confession is inadmissible unless it can be shown that the influence of the promise had been entirely dissipated so that the promise did not in fact induce the confession. “[I]f promises or threats have been used, it must be made to appear that their influence has been entirely done away with before subsequent confessions can be deemed voluntary, and therefore admissible.” State v. Drake, 113 N.C. 625, 628, 18 S.E. 166, 167 (1893) (confession made within hours after arresting officer told defendant it might be easier on him if he made an honest confession; held, confession inadmissible). “A promise of leniency renders a confession involuntary only if the confession is so connected with the inducement as to be the consequence of it.” State v. Pressley, 266 N.C. 663, 666, 147 S.E. 2d 33, 35 (1966). But “confessions induced by . . . [aj promise of reward are inadmissible.” State v. Richardson, 295 N.C. 309, 326, 245 S.E. 2d 754, 765 (1978).
Where there is evidence in the case that the influence of a promise of leniency has been dissipated, or “entirely done away with,” before the confession was made, then the question of whether the confession was a product of the promise is resolved by considering the “totality of circumstances.” State v. Corley, 310 N.C. 40, 311 S.E. 2d 540 (1984) (eighteen hours elapsed between promise of leniency and confession; held, confession not induced by promise); State v. Chamberlain, 307 N.C. 130, 146, 297 S.E. 2d 540, 550 (1982) (promise made one day; confession given the following day; held, connection between promise and confes*383sion was “so attenuated” that promise did not render confession involuntary).
In the case at bar, defendant’s willingness to confess followed Officer Dalton’s statement by approximately five minutes. Nothing was shown to have intervened between Dalton’s statement and defendant’s confession. Until Dalton’s statement was made, defendant had insisted on his right to silence and his right to counsel. There is nothing in the case to indicate that the influence of Dalton’s statement had been dissipated or “entirely done away with” before defendant’s confession was made. As a matter of law defendant’s confession was the product of Dalton’s statement. No issue arises in this case as to the causal relationship between the statement and the confession. There is no occasion for the application of the “totality of circumstances” approach used in Corley and Chamberlain.
Defendant’s confession being the product of Officer Dalton’s statement, the confession is inadmissible if Officer Dalton’s statement constitutes an implied promise of leniency. The majority opinion does not make it clear whether Dalton’s statement is indeed an implied promise of leniency. It refers to it as an “offhand statement . . . which is at best ambiguous.” If, of course, the statement is not an implied promise of leniency, then the result reached by the majority on the voluntariness issue is correct.
Because of the remaining analysis of the voluntariness issue contained in the majority opinion, the majority seems to assume that Dalton’s statement is an implied promise of leniency. I agree that the statement is an implied promise that if defendant cooperated with officers and made a statement to them, he would be “helped.” I do not see anything else to which Dalton could have had reference when he mentioned defendant’s “opportunity to help” himself.
We have, therefore, an implied promise of leniency followed within approximately five minutes by defendant’s willingness to make a statement which was in turn followed by defendant’s confession. Under rules heretofore consistently followed by the Court, the confession must be considered a product of the promise and, therefore, inadmissible as being involuntary.
Believing that the confession was the product of Officer Dalton’s statement as a matter of law, I also think this statement *384initiated the subsequent dialogue with defendant so that the confession is inadmissible under Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477 (1981).