Court Opinion

ID: 9578648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:47:05.724313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:11.606681
License: Public Domain

Justice Mitchell
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur only in the majority’s holding that there is no error in the judgments against the defendant for each of the first-degree murders to the extent they are based on the felony-murder doctrine. I dissent from those parts of the decision of the majority arresting both judgments against the defendant for first-degree kidnapping and vacating the two judgments against the defendant for first-degree murder to the extent they are based on the theory of premeditation and deliberation.
I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court committed reversible error in its jury instructions on acting in concert. The trial court instructed the jury, inter alia, as follows:
For a person to be guilty of a crime, it is not necessary that he, himself, do all the acts necessary to constitute the crime. If a defendant is present, with one or more persons, and acts together with a common purpose to commit murder, or to commit kidnapping, each of them is held responsible for the acts of the others, done in the commission of that murder or kidnapping, as well as any other crime committed by the other in furtherance of that common design.
(Emphasis added.) The trial court then went on to instruct, in essence, that the jury could find the defendant Anthony Ray Blankenship guilty of the first-degree murders on the theory of premeditation and deliberation if it found that Tony Sidden, acting in furtherance of a common design with Blankenship to kidnap the boys, intentionally killed the boys with malice after premeditation and deliberation.
*565The majority concludes that a defendant may not be held criminally responsible under the theory of acting in concert for a crime which requires a specific intent, such as premeditated and deliberate murder, unless the defendant himself had the required specific intent. Although I recognize that the conclusion of the majority in this regard represents the law of a majority of American jurisdictions, I respectfully submit that it is contrary to the law of North Carolina as it has existed prior to the decision of the majority in this case.
As early as 1858, this Court found it already “a well established principle, that where two agree to do an unlawful act, each is responsible for the act of the other, provided it be done in pursuance of the original understanding, or in furtherance of the common purpose.” State v. Simmons, 51 N.C. (6 Jones) 21, 24-25 (1858) (emphasis added). We held in Simmons that there was evidence that the defendant and his son had taken concerted action to beat the deceased or to unlawfully arrest him without a warrant and, therefore, the act of the son in killing the deceased “was clearly in furtherance of the common purpose [to beat or arrest], so as to make the [defendant father] responsible for [the killing].” Id. at 25 (citing Foster’s Crown Law at 351-352). Indeed, this Court has always recognized that:
If two persons are engaged in pursuit of an unlawful object, the two having the same object in view, and in pursuit of that common object one of them does an act which is the cause of death, under such circumstances that it amounts to murder in him, it amounts to murder in the other also.
State v. Finley, 118 N.C. 1162, 1171, 24 S.E. 495, 499 (1896) (quoting Regina v. Cox, 4 C. & P. at 538). Accord State v. Gooch, 94 N.C. 987, 1014 (1886).
More recently, we applied the foregoing well-established principles to a case involving a homicide occurring during the course of a robbery. See State v. Westbrook, 279 N.C. 18, 181 S.E.2d 572 (1971), death sentence vacated, 408 U.S. 939, 33 L. Ed. 2d 761, on remand, 281 N.C. 748, 191 S.E.2d 68 (1972). In that case, the defendant Westbrook testified that he and a man named Frazier undertook to rob their victim. Frazier got out of the car Westbrook was driving and into the victim’s car in order to carry out the robbery. While attempting to rob the victim, Frazier shot her, causing her death.
In Westbrook, the trial court instructed the jury that one of the theories upon which the State was proceeding against the defendant *566for murder was that the defendant and Frazier were acting in concert. This Court expressly stated that it found no error in the trial court’s instructions to the jury in Westbrook that
if two persons are acting together, in pursuance of a common plan and common purpose to rob, and one of them actually does the robbery, both would be equally guilty within the meaning of the law and if “two persons join in a purpose to commit a crime, each of them, if actually or constructively present, is not only guilty as a principal if the other commits that particular crime, but he is also guilty of any other crime committed by the other in pursuance of the common purpose; that is, the common plan to rob or as a natural or probable consequence thereof.”
Id. at 41-42, 181 S.E.2d at 586 (emphasis added). Relying upon cases such as Westbrook and its antecedents, we have very recently reemphasized these long-established principles. E.g., State v. Harvell, 334 N.C. 356, 364, 432 S.E.2d 125, 129 (1993); State v. Erlewine, 328 N.C. 626, 637, 403 S.E.2d 280, 286 (1991).
Citing State v. Reese, 319 N.C. 110, 353 S.E.2d 352 (1987), however, the majority concludes that the jury in the present case should have been instructed that it could convict the defendant Blankenship of premeditated and deliberate first-degree murder only if it found that at the time Tony Sidden killed the two boys, Blankenship himself intended, after premeditation and deliberation, that they be killed. To the extent that our opinion in Reese may be so construed, however, I believe it to represent an inadvertent misstatement of the law by this Court. Certainly, any such reading of Reese is contrary to our more recent and quite specific holdings on this question in Harvell and Erlewine.
I believe that until today the law of this jurisdiction has been that where two persons act in concert to commit a crime, each of them, if actually or constructively present, is not only guilty as a principal if the other commits that particular crime (in the present case, kidnapping), but he is also guilty of any other crime (here, murder) committed by the other in pursuance of the common purpose (here, to commit kidnapping) or as a natural or probable consequence thereof. Harvell, 334 N.C. at 364, 432 S.E.2d at 129; Erlewine, 328 N.C. at 637, 403 S.E.2d at 286; State v. Laws, 325 N.C. 81, 97, 381 S.E.2d 609, 618-19 (1989), sentence vacated, 494 U.S. 1022, 108 L. Ed. 2d 603 (1990), on remand, 328 N.C. 550, 402 S.E.2d 573 (1991); State v. Oliver, 309 N.C. 326, 362, 307 S.E.2d 304, 327 (1983); Joyner, 297 N.C. at 357-58, 255 *567S.E.2d at 395-96; Westbrook, 279 N.C. at 41-42, 181 S.E.2d at 586. Therefore, I would hold that the trial court did not err by instructing the jury that it could find the defendant Blankenship guilty of first-degree murder on the theory of premeditation and deliberation if it found that he acted in concert with Tony Sidden to commit a kidnapping and Tony Sidden committed premeditated and deliberate murder in pursuance of their common purpose to kidnap or as a natural or probable consequence thereof. Westbrook, 279 N.C. at 41-42, 181 S.E.2d at 586.
The majority is correct in its view that we have often approved instructions by trial courts where multiple crimes were involved in which the trial court instructed that when two people act together pursuant to a common plan, both are guilty of the crimes included within the common plan which are committed by either of them. E.g., State v. Jeffries, 333 N.C. 501, 428 S.E.2d 150 (1993); State v. Laws, 325 N.C. 81, 381 S.E.2d 609 (1989), judgment vacated on other grounds, 494 U.S. 1022, 108 L. Ed. 2d 603 (1990), on remand, 328 N.C. 550, 402 S.E.2d 573, cert. denied, - U.S.-, 116 L. Ed. 2d 174 (1991); State v. Joyner, 297 N.C. 349, 255 S.E.2d 390 (1979). We did so in those cases because the evidence tended to support only one reasonable finding; if the crimes were committed by the defendants, all defendants shared in a common plan and intent to commit all of the crimes charged. The fact that the instructions given were correct in light of the evidence in those cases, however, does not compel the majority’s holding that in all cases where two people are acting together in pursuit of a common plan to commit one crime but other crimes are committed by one of them in pursuance of the common plan, the other is guilty only of the one crime which he specifically intended be committed. Instead, the rule always has been, and in my view should continue to be, that:
[I]f “two persons join in a purpose to commit a crime, each of them, if actually or constructively present, is not only guilty as a principle if the other commits that particular crime, but he is also guilty of any other crime committed by the other in pursuance of the common purpose ... or as a natural or probable consequence thereof.”
Erlewine, 328 N.C. at 637, 403 S.E.2d at 286 (quoting Westbrook, 279 N.C. at 41-42, 180 S.E.2d at 586). Therefore, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court erred in its instructions on the doctrine of acting in concert in the present case. For that *568reason, I dissent from those parts of the decision of the majority vacating the two judgments against the defendant for first-degree murder to the extent those judgments are based on the theory of premeditation and deliberation.
The majority also holds that because it vacates the judgments of first-degree murder against the defendant to the extent they are based upon a premeditation and deliberation theory, the judgments against him for first-degree murder must be sustained only on a felony-murder theory, with kidnapping as the underlying felony. Therefore, the majority holds that the kidnapping convictions merge with the murder convictions, and the defendant may not be separately sentenced for the kidnappings. Accordingly, the majority arrests the judgments for the defendant’s two convictions for first-degree kidnapping.
As I have indicated previously herein, it is my view that the first-degree murder judgments against the defendant are properly based upon both the theory of premeditation and deliberation and the theory of felony murder. That being the case, I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the judgments against the defendant for first-degree kidnapping merged with the murder convictions and must be arrested. I concur only in those parts of the decision of the majority holding that the judgments against the defendant for first-degree murder are without error to the extent they are based on the felony-murder theory.