Court Opinion

ID: 9567712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:57:02.700875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:20:30.724884
License: Public Domain

ERVIN, Judge,
dissenting.
Although I fully agree with the Court that trial judges would be well-advised to avoid accepting separate verdicts concerning the various theories of first degree murder that are submitted for the jury’s consideration at separate times and that the trial court’s findings and conclusions concerning the admissibility of Mr. Dalrymple’s statement contain a number of errors, I cannot agree with the Court’s conclusion that the manner in which the trial court took the jury’s verdict violated Defendant’s constitutional right to trial by jury guaranteed by Article I, section 24. Moreover, even if the trial court’s action constituted an error of constitutional dimensions, I believe that, on the facts of this case, any such error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Finally, despite my concerns about the trial court’s findings and conclusions, I am not persuaded that Mr. Dalrymple’s statement was admissible pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 804(b)(5). As a result, I respectfully dissent from the Court’s decision to grant Defendant a new trial in the case in which he was convicted of first degree murder.
I. Separate Verdict Issue
Although the majority finds that the trial court’s decision to take separate verdicts at separate times on the three theories under which the evidence permitted Defendant to be convicted of first degree murder violated his state constitutional right to trial by jury, it is not clear to me why the majority reaches this conclusion. Just as the majority finds there to be no authority condoning the practice in which the trial court engaged in this case, there is also no authority that explicitly prohibits it. Instead, as best I have been able to ascertain, the present issue is one of first impression in this jurisdiction. As a result, in order to reach the conclusion that the trial court’s action violated Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution, the Court relies on the uncontroverted fact that a defendant is charged with, *23and convicted of, criminal offenses rather than theories of liability; points out that trial judges include multiple theories of liability on the verdict sheets that are submitted for the jury’s consideration for reasons that are primarily related to the imposition of sentence; and contends that the trial court’s action is inconsistent with the decision of the Supreme Court in State v. Booker, 306 N.C. 302, 293 S.E.2d 78 (1982). I am not, however, persuaded that the Supreme Court’s logic establishes that an error of constitutional dimension occurred in this case.
The fact that “defendants are not convicted or acquitted of theories [but] are convicted or acquitted of crimes,” State v. Thomas, 325 N.C. 583, 593, 386 S.E.2d 555, 561 (1989), while well-established, does not seem to me to be particularly relevant to the issue that is before us. As the Court notes, the primary purpose of requesting a jury to specify the theory upon which it convicts a defendant of first degree murder relates to sentencing issues rather than to issues relating to the defendant’s guilt. State v. Millsaps, 356 N.C. 556, 560, 572 S.E.2d 767, 770-71 (2002) (stating that the extent to which a predicate felony used to support the defendant’s conviction of first degree murder under a felony murder theory can be used as an aggravating factor during a capital sentencing hearing depends upon whether the jury also found that the defendant acted with premeditation, and deliberation); State v. Norwood, 303 N.C. 473, 480, 279 S.E.2d 550, 555 (1981) (stating that, in the event that the defendant was convicted of first degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation as well as under the felony murder rule, the trial court could properly impose a separate sentence upon the defendant for the predicate felony). The majority’s argument overlooks the fact that, once the jury has found unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant committed first degree murder under anv theory, he or she has been convicted of first degree murder.1 As a result, while I agree with the Court that we are not talking about true partial verdicts in this case (for that reason, I will describe the approach taken by the trial court in this case as the taking of separate verdicts in the remainder of this opinion), I am not convinced that the fact that defendants are convicted of offenses rather than theories sheds a great deal of light on the extent to which the trial court’s actions in this case violated Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution.
*24The fact that the verdicts that the jury rendered on the various theories of liability submitted for its consideration would impact the sentences to which Defendant was exposed, while true, does not strike me as particularly relevant to the lawfulness of the trial court’s action. The lawfulness of the trial court’s action, it seems to me, should hinge upon the proper interpretation of the relevant constitutional or statutory provisions rather than upon the impact of the approach adopted by the trial court upon the sentences imposed upon Defendant, which is generally governed by double jeopardy or statutory construction considerations. As a result, while a premature decision to accept a guilty verdict with respect to one or more theories of guilt might, under some circumstances not present here,2 call the trial court’s ability to impose a separate, consecutive sentence for kidnapping into question, it does not, at least in my opinion, have any bearing on the extent to which the trial court erred by accepting separate verdicts in the present case.
Thirdly, I do not share the Court’s concern that the trial court’s action was inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Booker. In Booker, the defendant contended that, in light of a note that the foreperson sent to the trial judge to the effect that the jury was deadlocked on the issue of the defendant’s guilt of second degree murder, “the jury had implicitly found the defendant not guilty of first-degree murder” and that he should not have been retried for that offense based on double jeopardy considerations. Booker, 306 N.C. at 304, 293 S.E.2d at 79. In rejecting the defendant’s argument, the Supreme Court pointed out that “the better reasoned rule is the majority rule which requires a final verdict before there can be an implied acquittal.” Id., 306 N.C. at 305, 293 S.E.2d at 80. As support for this conclusion, the Supreme Court in Booker quoted the decision of the Michigan Court of Appeals in People v. Hickey, 103 Mich. App. 350, 35 303 N.W.2d 19 (1981), in which the Court stated that “polling the jury on the various possible verdicts submitted to it would constitute an unwarranted and unwise intrusion into the province of the jury,” since, “as a practical matter,” “jury votes on included offenses may be the result of a temporary compromise in an effort to reach unanimity” and since “[a] jury should not be precluded from reconsidering a previous vote on any issue, and the weight of final adjudication should *25not be given to any jury action that is not returned in a final verdict.” I do not believe that Booker sheds much light on the present issue, since the trial court did not, in this case, question the jury about its decision about the issue of Defendant’s guilt of lesser included offenses. Put another way, Booker involved a request that the trial judge question the jury about inchoate decisions that might have been made by the jury during its discussions rather than about any sort of final verdict that the jury might have reached. In this instance, however, the trial court ascertained that the jury had reached final verdicts on the issues of Defendant’s guilt of all of the charges except the first degree murder charge and that it had reached verdicts as to two of the three theories of liability that had been submitted for its consideration with respect to that charge. As a result, the trial court’s action in this case, which amounted to accepting verdicts from the jury with respect to issues about which the jury indicated that it had reached a decision, is simply not similar to those that the Supreme Court refused to countenance in Booker. Thus, none of the three arguments that the Court advances in support of its conclusion that the action taken by the trial court in this instance violated Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution persuade me that a constitutional violation actually occurred.
The total absence of any authority shedding any direct light on the claim that Defendant has presented for our review necessitates an examination of the aims and purposes of Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution, which provides that “[n]o person shall be convicted of any crime but by the unanimous verdict of a jury in open court,” while preserving the General Assembly’s right to “provide for other means of trial for misdemeanors, with the right of appeal for trial de novo.” “It is not questioned either that trial by jury is deeply rooted in our institutions or that the term ‘jury’ as understood at common law and as used in the Constitution imports a body of twelve [persons] duly summoned, sworn, and impaneled for the trial of issues joined between litigants, in a civil actionf,] or for the determination of facts adduced for and against the accused in a criminal case.” State v. Dalton, 206 N.C. 507, 512, 174 S.E. 422, 424-25 (1934) (citations omitted). If a practice “preserves the essential attributes of trial by jury, number, impartiality, and unanimity [citation omitted], it cannot be said to impair the common law right as guaranteed by the Constitution.” Id., 206 N.C. at 512, 174 S.E. at 425; see also State v. Fowler, 312 N.C. 304, 308, 322 S.E.2d 389, 392 (1984) (stating that “our constitution has been interpreted to require a jury of twelve and a unanimous verdict”) (citing State v. Hudson, 280 *26N.C. 74, 79, 185 S.E.2d 189, 192 (1971), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1160, 39 L. Ed. 2d 112 (1974)). The issues that have been addressed by the Supreme Court and this Court in cases involving alleged violations of Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution have included claims such as those involving the use of disjunctive jury instructions, State v. Diaz, 317 N.C. 545, 346 S.E.2d 488 (1986); the delivery of instructions to a single juror instead of to the entire jury, State v. Wilson, 363 N.C. 478, 681 S.E.2d 325 (2009); State v. Ashe, 314 N.C. 28, 331 S.E.2d 652 (1985); issues arising from questions posed by the trial court to the jury during deliberations in which the trial court allegedly coerced the jury into reaching a verdict, State v. Rasmussen, 158 N.C. App. 544, 582 S.E.2d 44, disc. review denied, 357 N.C. 581, 589 S.E.2d 362 (2003); issues involving jury misconduct, State v. Jackson, 189 N.C. App. 747, 659 S.E.2d 73, disc. review denied, 362 N.C. 512, 668 S.E.2d 564 (2008), cert. denied, - U.S.-, 173 L. Ed. 2d 662 (2009); and issues involving jury polling, State v. Black, 328 N.C. 191, 400 S.E.2d 398 (1991). As a result of the fact that Defendant does not contend that the trial court’s actions resulted in a verdict returned by less than twelve jurors; adversely affected the jury’s impartiality; permitted the jury to reach non-unanimous verdicts with respect to any theory of liability; or coerced the jury into reaching unanimous verdicts with respect to these theories in any way, Defendant’s claim does not resemble any of the grounds for appellate relief typically urged upon us under Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution.
As a result of my inability to foresee all possible ways in which the approach adopted by the trial court in this instance might impinge upon jury unanimity considerations, I am unwilling to hold that accepting separate verdicts would never be a violation of Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution. However, in order for such a violation to occur, I believe that the trial court’s action would have to implicate one of the attributes of a jury trial set out in Dalton, 206 N.C. at 512, 174 S.E. at 425. In making this determination, I believe that the Court must examine the relevant facts on a case-by-case basis. Such an approach would be consistent with the “totality of the circumstances” approach that has been adopted by the Supreme Court for addressing cases in which trial judges allegedly questioned the jury in such a manner as to coerce it into reaching a guilty verdict. Fowler, 312 N.C. at 308, 322 S.E.2d at 392. As a result, “[t]he actions of the trial judge in context and under all the circumstances presented must be reviewed to determine if a judge’s instructions and actions had a coercive effect,” United States v. Taylor, 19 Fed. Appx. 62, 65 (4th Cir. 2001) (citing Jenkins v. United States, 380 U.S. 445, *27446, 13 L. Ed. 2d 957, 958 (1965)), or otherwise adversely impacted the attributes of a jury trial protected by Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution. In light of that standard, a trial judge should carefully consider any decision to accept partial or separate verdicts, making sure that he or she “neither pressure [s] the jury to reconsider what it had actually decided nor force [s] the jury to turn a tentative decision into a final one.” United States v. Wheeler, 802 F.2d 778, 781 (5th Cir. 1986) (citing United States v. DiLapi, 651 F.2d 140, 146-47 (2d Cir. 1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 938, 71 L. Ed. 2d 648 (1982)). Given the risks inherent in taking partial or separate verdicts, I would strongly discourage members of the trial bench from taking such verdicts. However, I am unable, after carefully considering the attributes protected by Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution, to conclude that engaging in the practice of taking partial or piecemeal verdicts constitutes a per se violation of that constitutional provision and believe that we must evaluate the lawfulness of taking such verdicts based on the totality of the circumstances.
The approach I have suggested'for evaluating claims of the nature advanced by Defendant in this case is consistent with the approach that the federal courts have adopted in cases involving the taking of partial verdicts.3 The federal courts have authorized trial judges to take partial verdicts in cases involving multiple criminal offenses. Fed. R. Crim. P. 31(b)(2); see also United States v. Benedict, 95 F.3d 17, 19 (8th Cir. 1996) (stating that, in the federal courts, “the practice of taking a partial verdict in a single-defendant case is not per se invalid,” while reviewing the trial court’s decision in the case in question for an abuse of discretion and finding that such an abuse of discretion occurred under the facts of that case) (citing United State v. Ross, 626 F.2d 77, 81 (9th Cir. 1980) (stating that “it is settled that a trial court may accept a partial verdict on only one of two or more counts of an indictment”); United States v. DeLaughter, 453 F.2d 908, 910 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 932, 32 L. Ed. 2d 135 (1972) (stating that “[i]t is also permissible for a jury, as here, to render a partial verdict; a court may accept a jury’s verdict as to one count and declare a mistrial as to another upon which no agreement has been reached”); United States v. Barash, 412 F.2d 26, 31-32 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 832, 24 L. Ed. 2d 82 (1969) (stating that “[t]he prac*28tice of sending the jury back for further deliberations on unresolved counts has been followed in this circuit since United States v. Cotter, 60 F.2d 689, 690-91 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 287 U.S. 666, 77 L. Ed. 575 (1932), and we adhere to that practice here”). As a result, while these cases are distinguishable in that they address partial verdicts dealing with different charges rather than separate verdicts dealing with separate theories of guilt, it is clear that the federal courts have not, as best I can tell, condemned the basic practice employed by the trial court in this case out of hand but have, instead, chosen to evaluate the taking of partial verdicts on a case-by-case basis of the type that I believe to appropriately reflect the approach that should be adopted under Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution.
At bottom, the Court’s concern in this case appears to be that, by taking separate verdicts on a theory-by-theory basis, the trial court precluded the jury from reconsidering their decisions with respect to the issues of Defendant’s guilt under a felony murder and lying in wait theory during their deliberations on the issue of Defendant’s guilt under a premeditation and deliberation theory. After carefully considering the record, I am simply unable to agree that the Court’s concerns are well-founded given the facts that we have before us in this case. I reach this conclusion for a number of different reasons.
First, and perhaps most importantly, the jury effectively asked to be permitted to deliberate on a theory-by-theory basis. Before the end of the first day of deliberations, the jury had asked to be reinstructed on a particular theory, to deliberate on that theory until it reached a decision, and to repeat that process with the next theory. As a result, at least in this case, the jury had already decided to approach each theory of liability separately and to reach a decision with respect to that theory before moving on to the next one. Thus, the trial court’s decision to take separate verdicts in this case merely reflected an approach that the jury had already adopted.
Secondly, unlike the situation in Benedict, upon which the Court places considerable reliance, the factors that are relevant to determining Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder under a lying in wait or felony murder theory are not particularly interrelated with the considerations that are critical to the issue of Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder under a premeditation and deliberation theory. As a general proposition, the first two theories focus on what Defendant did, while the third theory focuses on the state of mind with which he acted. As a result, the process adopted here does not seem to me to *29have “intrude[d] on the jury’s deliberative process in such a way as to cut short its opportunity to fully consider the evidence.” Benedict, 95 F.3d at 19. Simply put, the jury could, with complete logical consistency, return a verdict in this case finding that Defendant was not guilty of first degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation after finding that Defendant was guilty of first degree murder on the basis of felony murder and lying in wait.
Thirdly, the record suggests that the jury had, in fact, reached final verdicts with respect to the issue of Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder on the basis of felony murder and lying in wait by the end of the first day of deliberations. According to the transcript, the jury had completed that portion of the verdict form indicating its determination that Defendant was guilty of first degree murder under a felony murder and a lying in wait theory at the time that the trial court inquired as to whether the jury had reached a verdict on any issues (although the necessary signature had not been affixed to one or more verdict sheets, causing the trial court to send the jury back out for the purpose of ensuring that the verdict sheets were properly signed). As a result, contrary to the Court’s suggestion that the jury-might well have changed its mind on the issue of Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder under a felony murder or lying in wait theory during its deliberations on the issue of his guilt of first degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation, the record tends to suggest that the jury had already completed the portions of the verdict sheet dealing with the felony murder and lying in wait issues before beginning its deliberations concerning the issue of his guilt of first degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation.
Fourth, I do not believe that this Court, the Supreme Court, or the General Assembly intends to encourage compromise verdicts of the sort mentioned in Hickey. Instead, it is my impression that jurors are supposed to base their decisions on a thorough analysis of the evidence in light of the legal principles embodied in the trial court’s instructions. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1235(b)(4) (stating that among the instructions that a trial court may deliver to deliberating jurors is that “[n]o juror should surrender his honest conviction as to the weight or effect of the evidence solely because of the opinion of his fellow jurors, or for the mere purpose of returning a verdict”); see also State v. Alston, 294 N.C. 577, 596, 243 S.E.2d 354, 366 (1978) (stating that the trial court’s instruction “was amply sufficient to convey to each member of the jury that he should not surrender any conscientious conviction in order to reach a unanimous verdict”). For that reason, I *30am more than slightly reluctant to base a decision on the prospect that members of the jury would engage in horse-trading with each other in order to reach compromise verdicts. Although individual jurors may, in fact, engage in such activities during the process of deliberating, I do not believe that we should encourage such conduct by the way that we decide the cases that come before us.
> Finally, the trial court polled the jury after taking the separate verdicts at the end of the first day of deliberations and repeated the procedure before the jury resumed its deliberations on the following morning in light of a recording error. On both occasions, each member of the jury indicated that the verdicts reported by the jury foreperson were his or her verdicts and that he or she still assented to them. See Black, 328 N.C. at 191, 400 S.E.2d at 398 (stating that polling is a means of ensuring that a juror has not changed his or her mind). The fact that the members of the jury had an opportunity to reconsider the verdicts which the trial court accepted at the conclusion of the first day of deliberations before resuming deliberations on the following morning provides further indication that the concern that motivates the majority to overturn Defendant’s first degree murder conviction is not operative in this case. As a result, for all of these reasons, I do not believe that the trial court’s decision to accept separate verdicts concerning the issue of Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder on the basis of lying in wait and the felony murder rule violated Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution.
Even if the trial court’s action violated Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution, I am satisfied that any such error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no question but that the jury found Defendant guilty of first degree murder on the basis of three different theories of liability. In order for there to have been any harm to Defendant from the approach adopted by the trial court, the jury would have had to have found, during its further deliberations in connection with the issue of Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation, either that Defendant was not guilty of first degree murder at all or that Defendant was not guilty of first degree murder on the basis of any theory except the felony murder rule (in which case, as the Court notes, he would be entitled to a new sentencing hearing in the cases in which he was convicted of the predicate felonies used to support his first degree murder conviction under the felony murder rule). I am simply not persuaded, for all of the reasons that convince me that the trial court did not violate Article I, section 24 in the first place, that there is any *31chance that either of these outcomes would have occurred had the trial court not accepted the separate verdicts which are at issue here. The fact that the jury asked to proceed on a theory-by-theory basis convinces me that it is very unlikely that, after finishing its deliberations with respect to one theory, it would have gone back and revisited its decision with respect to a previously-considered theory during its discussion of a later one. My conclusion to this effect is bolstered by the fact that the jury had already completed the relevant portions of the verdict sheet at the time that the trial court proposed taking the separate verdicts and the fact that the considerations that are relevant to the issue of Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder under a premeditation and deliberation theory are significantly different than the issues that must be addressed in determining his guilt of first degree murder under a felony murder or lying in wait theory. Finally, the lack of hesitancy expressed by any member of the jury during the polling process, even after having overnight to think about the possible ramifications of the jury’s decision, gives me further confidence that any error committed by the trial court in taking the separate verdicts was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. At most, the only verdict that was defective was the jury’s verdict on the issue of Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation, and there is no need to disturb the trial court’s judgments even if that verdict is set aside given that the jury’s decision to find Defendant guilty of first degree murder on the basis of lying in wait is sufficient to support the separate sentence imposed upon Defendant for the predicate felonies used to support his first degree murder conviction under the felony murder rule.
Thus, for all of these reasons, I conclude that, given the unusual facts present here, the trial court did not violate Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution by taking the jury’s verdicts in the manner in which they were taken in this case and that, even if the manner in which the verdicts were taken was erroneous, any such error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Since the Court concludes otherwise, I respectfully dissent from its decision to award Defendant a new trial in the case in which Defendant was convicted of first degree murder based on the manner in which the trial court took the jury’s verdict.
II. Residual Hearsay Issue
In addition, the Court concludes that the trial court erred by refusing to admit the statement of Mr. Dalrymple, which Defendant sought to have admitted pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule *32804(b)(5) after Mr. Dalrymple asserted his right not to incriminate himself guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, section 23 of the North Carolina Constitution when called as a witness by Defendant. •Although I agree with the Court that the trial court’s findings and conclusions concerning the admissibility of Mr. Dalrymple’s statement contain a number of errors, I believe that the trial court’s ultimate decision was correct.
The analytical framework that must be utilized in evaluating the admissibility of residual hearsay is well-established.
Once a trial court establishes that a declarant is unavailable pursuant to Rule 804(a) of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence, there is a six-part inquiry to determine the admissibility of the hearsay evidence proffered under Rule 804(b)(5). State v. Fowler, 353 N.C. 599, 608-[6]09, 548 S.E.2d 684, 696 (2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 939, 152 L. Ed. 2d 230 (2002); State v. Triplett, 316 N.C. 1, 8-9, 340 S.E.2d 736, 741 (1986). . . . Under either of the two residual exceptions to the hearsay rule, the trial court must determine the following: (1) whether proper notice has been given, (2) whether the hearsay is not specifically covered elsewhere, (3) whether the statement is trustworthy, (4) whether the statement is material, (5) whether the statement is more probative on the issue than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts, and (6) whether the interests of justice will be best served by admission. State v. Smith, 315 N.C. 76, 91-98, 337 S.E.2d 833, 844-[8]48 (1985); accord N.C. [Gen. Stat.] § 8C-1, Rule 804(b)(5) (2001); see also Triplett, 316 N.C. at 8-10, 340 S.E.2d at 740-741.
State v. Valentine, 357 N.C. 512, 517-18, 591 S.E.2d 846, 852 (2003). As a practical matter, however, the only one of the criteria enunciated in North Carolina’s residual hearsay jurisprudence that is in serious dispute in this case is that relating to the “trustworthiness” of Mr. Dalrymple’s statement.4 For that reason, I will focus the remainder of my dissent on the trustworthiness issue.
*33“To be admissible under the residual exception to the hearsay rule, the hearsay statement must possess ‘guarantees of trustworthiness’ that are equivalent to the other exceptions contained in Rule 804(b).” State v. McLaughlin, 316 N.C. 175, 179, 340 S.E.2d 102, 104 (1986). In “determining . . . trustworthiness, the following considerations are at issue: (1) whether the declarant had personal knowledge of the underlying events, (2) whether the declarant is motivated to speak the truth or otherwise, (3) whether the declarant has ever recanted the statement, and (4) whether the declarant is available at trial for meaningful cross-examination.” Valentine, 357 N.C. at 518, 591 S.E.2d at 852 (citing State v. King, 353 N.C. 457, 479, 546 S.E.2d 575, 592 (2001), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1147, 151 L. Ed. 2d 1002 (2002); State v. Tyler, 346 N.C. 187, 195, 485 S.E.2d 599, 603, cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1001, 139 L. Ed. 2d 411 (1997); State v. Nichols, 321 N.C. 616, 624, 365 S.E.2d 561, 566 (1988). Although “[t]he trial court should make findings of fact and conclusions of law when determining if an out-of-court hearsay statement possesses the necessary circumstantial guarantee of trustworthiness to allow its admission,” State v. Swindler, 339 N.C. 469, 474, 450 S.E.2d 907, 910-11 (1994) (citing State v. Deanes, 323 N.C. 508, 515, 374 S.E.2d 249, 255 (1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1101, 104 L. Ed. 2d 1009 (1989), and Triplett, 316 N.C. at 10, 340 S.E.2d at 742), this Court has held that, while “[t]he six part inquiry [set out in Smith] is very useful when an appellate court reviews the admission of hearsay under Rule 804(b)(5) or 803(24), ... its utility is diminished when an appellate court reviews the exclusion of hearsay,” since “[c]ommon sense dictates that if proffered evidence fails to meet the requirements of one of the inquiry steps, the trial judge’s findings concerning the preceding steps are unnecessary.” Phillips & Jordan Investment Corp. v. Ashblue Co., 86 N.C. App. 186, 191, 357 S.E.2d 1, 3-4, disc. review denied, 320 N.C. 633, 360 S.E.2d 92 (1987); see also State v. Hardison, 143 N.C. App. 114, 118, 545 S.E.2d 233, 236 (2001); State v. Harris, 139 N.C. App. 153, 159, 532 S.E.2d 850, 854, disc. review denied, 353 N.C. 271, 546 S.E.2d 121 (2000). As a result, in cases in which the trial court made a trustworthiness determination without making findings of fact and conclusions of law, the Supreme Court has simply made its own evaluation of the record to determine whether the evidence supported the trial court’s conclusion. Valentine, 357 N.C. at 518-19, 591 S.E.2d at 853 (citing State v. Daughtry, 340 N.C. 488, 514, 459 S.E.2d *34747, 760 (1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1079, 133 L. Ed. 2d 739 (1996) (upholding the trial court’s generalized finding of trustworthiness based on a review of the record); Swindler, 339 N.C. at 474, 450 S.E.2d at 911 (reversing the trial court’s generalized finding of trustworthiness based on a review of the record).
In analyzing the trial court’s findings, the Court correctly concludes that the trial court erred to the extent that it believed that Mr. Dalrymple was acting against his own interests by refusing to testify at Defendant’s trial. More particularly, as the State candidly concedes, to the extent that the trial court believed that Mr. Dalrymple subjected himself to a risk that the death penalty would be imposed upon him by declining to testify at Defendant’s trial, that understanding of Mr. Dalrymple’s agreement with the prosecutor’s office is simply incorrect. Simply put, the agreement in question said nothing about what would happen if Mr. Dalrymple testified for a party other than the State. For that reason, Mr. Dalrymple’s refusal to testify at Defendant’s trial had no bearing on whether he subjected himself to a risk of execution for his role in Mr. Harrington’s murder.
Furthermore, I agree with the Court’s conclusion that the record contains no indication that Mr. Dalrymple ever recanted his statement to investigating officers and that the trial court erred to the extent that it equated Mr. Dalrymple’s refusal to testify with a recantation. As the Court notes, Mr. Dalrymple was still subject to being prosecuted for first degree murder and “had no realistic choice except to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights since, if he testified, he would provide the State with admissions that could then be used to convict him at his own trial.” For that reason, the Court correctly concludes that “the trial court erred in failing to hold that [Mr.] Dalrymple never recanted his September 2007 statement.”
Finally, I agree with the Court that the fact that Mr. Dalrymple asserted his right against compulsory self-incrimination as guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, section 23 of the North Carolina Constitution does not provide any basis for concluding that Mr. Dalrymple’s statement is untrustworthy. An individual may invoke his or her constitutional protection against compulsory self-incrimination for a host of reasons that are unrelated to the trustworthiness of any statement that he or she may have given to investigating officers. As a result, to the extent that the trial court deemed the fact that Defendant invoked his federal and state constitutional right against compulsory self-incrimination to have any *35bearing on the trustworthinéss of his statement, any such conclusion was erroneous.
I am not, at this point, prepared to either agree with, or dissent from, the Court’s discussion of the appropriateness of the trial court’s decision to consider the consistency of the information contained in Mr. Dalrymple’s statement with other available evidence in evaluating the trustworthiness of his statement. Although there are certainly decisions that suggest that such considerations should not be taken into account in the course of conducting the required trustworthiness analysis, State v. Finney, 358 N.C. 79, 84, 591 S.E.2d 863, 866 (2004); Tyler, 346 N.C. at 199-203, 485 S.E.2d at 605-07; State v. Hurst, 127 N.C. App. 54, 61, 487 S.E.2d 846, 852, disc. review denied, 347 N.C. 406, 494 S.E.2d 427 (1997), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1031, 140 L. Ed. 2d 486 (1998), these decisions predicate this requirement on the dictates of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution as construed in Idaho v. Wright, 497 U.S. 805, 111 L. Ed. 2d 638 (1990). In view of the fact that the approach to Confrontation Clause issues embodied in Wright has been superseded by the approach embodied in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 158 L. Ed. 2d 177 (2004); the fact that the evidence at issue here was proffered by Defendant rather than the State; and the fact that earlier decisions of the Supreme Court, such as Nichols, 321 N.C. at 625, 365 S.E.2d at 567, allowed for consideration of “corroborating evidence” during the required trustworthiness analysis, it is not entirely clear to me that the Court is correct in concluding that “the trial court erred in determining the trustworthiness of the September 2007 statement by comparing it to other evidence presented at trial.” However, since the policy justifications that underlie many of the other hearsay exceptions set out in N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 804(b) focus primarily on the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement in question, see, e.g., State v. Stevens, 295 N.C. 21, 29, 243 S.E.2d 771, 776 (1978) (stating that the hearsay exception for dying declarations rests “upon the tenet that when an individual believes death to be imminent, the ordinary motives for falsehood are absent and most powerful considerations impel him to speak the truth”); Smith v. Moore, 142 N.C. 277, 287, 55 S.E. 275, 278 (1906) (stating that admissions against interest are admissible because “[t]his natural disposition to speak of favor of, rather than against interest, is so strong that when one has declared anything to his own prejudice, his statement is so stamped with the image and superscription of truth that it is accepted by the law as proof of the correctness and accuracy of what was said”), and since I do not believe that it is necessary to *36resolve this question in order to decide the present issue, I will refrain from commenting on this issue at the present time.
At bottom, the Court concludes that, since each of the reasons that the trial court gave for excluding Mr. Dalrymple’s statement was in error, the trial court erred by excluding his statement. I am not satisfied with this justification for overturning the trial court’s ruling. Instead, I believe, on the basis of decisions such as Valentine, Ashblue Co., Hardison, and Harris, that our task on appeal, given the situation that we face in this case, is to make our own determination of whether Mr. Dalrymple’s statement is sufficiently trustworthy to be admissible pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 804(b)(5). The Court does not, it seems to me, ever address this question.
When I undertake what I believe to be the necessary trustworthiness evaluation, it appears to me that the only factors that militate in favor of a finding of trustworthiness are that Mr. Dalrymple had personal knowledge of the events that occurred at the .time of Mr. Harrington’s death and that he never recanted his statement after giving it to investigating officers. Unlike Defendant, I am not persuaded that Mr. Dalrymple “was motivated to speak the truth by the State’s agreement to take death off the table.” On the contrary, the existence of such sentence concessions is typically a basis for challenging, rather than bolstering, a witness’ credibility. State v. Carey, 285 N.C. 497, 508, 206 S.E.2d 213, 221 (1974) (holding that trial court erred by limiting the scope of cross-examination during a first degree murder trial “so as to exclude all mention of the death penalty” because the “question of [the witness’] credibility and bias is of such vast importance in this case” and because “one very important factor which may have influenced [the witness’] decision to cooperate with the State was the possibility that ... he might have been convicted and sentenced to death”). In other words, it seems to me that the fact that Mr. Dalrymple was facing the possibility of a death sentence, instead of motivating him to tell the truth, might well have impelled him to say whatever he thought was necessary to further his own interests. See Swindler, 339 N.C. at 475, 450 S.E.2d at 911 (finding a lack of trustworthiness because, among other things, declarant’s motivation “was not... to speak the truth, but rather for him to say what the police wanted to hear”); McLaughlin, 316 N.C. at 180, 340 S.E.2d at 105 (finding a lack of trustworthiness because, among other things, the declarant “made the statement to gain favor with the police and in hopes of a favorable plea bargain”). As a result, I am inclined to find that the circumstances under which Mr. Dalrymple made his state*37ment to investigating officers militates against, rather than for, its trustworthiness. Id., 316 N.C. at 180, 340 S.E.2d at 105 (holding that the trial court erred by admitting the statement of an accomplice because “[t]he totality of the circumstances surrounding [the accomplice’s] confession justifies our conclusion that it lacked the required ‘equivalent... guarantees of trustworthiness’ ”). As a result, I believe that the only factors that tend to support a finding of trustworthiness are the fact that Mr. Dalrymple had the requisite personal knowledge and the fact that he never recanted his statement after making it. These factors are not, at least in my opinion, adequate to justify a conclusion that Mr. Dalrymple’s statement was sufficiently trustworthy to permit its admission into evidence pursuant to N.C.'Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 804(b)(5) when considered in conjunction with the questions about Mr. Dalrymple’s motivations that arise from the sentencing concessions that he received from the State. Since the Court concludes otherwise, I respectfully dissent from its decision to grant Defendant a new trial in the case in which he was convicted of first degree murder on the basis of this issue as well.
III. Conclusion
For the reasons set forth above, I respectfully disagree with the Court’s conclusion that the trial court violated Article I, section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution by taking the jury’s verdicts with respect to the issue of Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder on the basis of lying in wait and the felony murder rule separately from its verdict with respect to the issue of Defendant’s guilt of first degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation. In addition, I respectfully disagree with the Court’s conclusion that the trial court erred by refusing to admit Mr. Dalrymple’s statement into evidence pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 804(b)(5). As a result, I respectfully dissent from the Court’s decision awarding Defendant a new trial in the case in which he was convicted of first degree murder.

. The verdict sheet contained in the record reflecting the jury’s verdicts on the felony murder and lying in wait issues reflects, at its very top, that the jury found that Defendant was guilty of first degree murder.

. The fact that one of the first two verdicts which the trial court accepted in the homicide Case involved the jury’s determination that Defendant was guilty of first degree murder under a lying in wait theory eliminates any concern that the delay in the jury’s decision on the premeditation and deliberation issue in any way prejudiced Defendant.

. Admittedly, the federal courts are not applying a constitutional standard in these cases. However, since the concerns that led to the challenges advanced against the partial verdicts challenged in those cases are similar to the concerns that have motivated Defendant’s challenge to the separate verdicts at issue here, I believe that these cases shed some light on the issues that are before us in this case.

. In its brief, the State argues that Defendant failed to establish that Mr. Dalrymple’s statement was more probative than any other evidence available to Defendant. According to the State, Defendant’s own testimony would have been more probative than Mr. Dalrymple’s statement. The State did not, however, cite any decision from any federal or state court indicating that the requirement that a criminal defendant’s attempt to offer residual hearsay could be defeated because a criminal defendant refused to waive his federal and state right against compulsory self-incrimina*33tion, and I have not found any support for such a proposition in my own research. As a result, I agree with the Court’s implicit decision to refrain from accepting the State’s argument on this point.