Court Opinion

ID: 9623860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:45:03.32314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:35.779329
License: Public Domain

Judge WYNN
dissenting and concurring in part.
The defendant in this case contends that accessory after the fact of murder and aiding and abetting murder are joinable offenses and that, as such, one cannot be used to aggravate the sentence of another. For the reasons which follow, I would hold, contrary to the majority, that the defendant is entitled to a new sentencing hearing.
From the outset, it is noted that the offense of aiding and abetting is treated as the principal offense. See, e.g., State v. Polk, 309 N.C. 559, 308 S.E.2d 296 (1983); State v. Walden, 306 N.C. 466, 293 S.E.2d 780 (1982); State v. Furr, 292 N.C. 711, 235 S.E.2d 193 (1977); State v. Dawson, 272 N.C. 535, 159 S.E.2d 1 (1968); State v. Childress, 267 N.C. 85, 147 S.E.2d 595 (1966). In light of this statement, it is also instructive to note the holding of the North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. McIntosh, 260 N.C. 749, 133 S.E.2d 652 (1963), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 939, 12 L.Ed.2d 302 (1964), wherein the Court stated that accessory after the fact to a felony is a separate and distinct crime from the principal felonious act. Most significantly, the Court stated that:
A participant in a felony may no more be an accessory after the fact that one who commits larceny may be guilty of receiving the goods which he himself had stolen. The crime of accessory after the fact has its beginning after the principal offense has been committed. How may an accessory after the fact render assistance to the principal felon if he himself is the principal felon?
Id. at 753, 133 S.E.2d at 655.
*362It stands to reason that since a principal felon cannot be an accessory after the fact to himself, he also cannot aggravate his own crime by being an accessory after the fact to himself. It follows that since an aider and abettor to a felony is treated the same as the principal that committed the felony offense, he too cannot be an accessory after the fact to that same offense.
It was improper to aggravate defendant’s conviction as an accessory after the fact by finding as a factor in aggravation that he was also an aider and abettor to that offense. Defendant should be given a new sentencing hearing on this issue.