Court Opinion

ID: 9540947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:21:04.57339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:49.285905
License: Public Domain

Justice EXUM
dissenting.
Cases like this involving alleged sexual assaults against young children tear at the hearts of us all. Emotions tend to run high and our natural inclination is to want to favor and protect the child. In these cases especially it is important that the courts permit the state to put on all the legitimate evidence it has to prove its case. It is equally important that courts be assiduous to keep out evidence which is both irrelevant to defendant’s guilt or innocence or to any other question in the case but which may incline the jury to want to convict defendant for reasons other than evidence of his guilt of the crime for which he is being tried. In the trial of this case so much of this kind of evidence came in that I think there is a possibility a different result would have been reached by the jury had it been kept out. N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443, which requires that a new trial be granted if the error in question results in such a possibility, compels me to vote for a new trial.
The state’s evidence consisted primarily of the testimony of the young victim, corroborated by the testimony of several adults that the victim had made statements to them consistent with her trial testimony. There was, however, no testimony by the examining physician concerning a tear in the victim’s hymen. Although the physician was subpoenaed by the state, he was never called to testify. Instead, a nurse who assisted the physician testified that she observed a tear in the victim’s hymen during the physician’s examination of the victim’s external genitalia.
Defendant testified in his own behalf and denied his guilt. According to his testimony, he had been previously married and divorced, had three adult children by his former wife and had recently been married about a year to his second wife. He had been minister of music and youth director at several churches in Buncombe County and had gotten to know the victim’s parents through his work with a local radio station where the victim’s *418father was employed as program director and which station broadcast defendant’s gospel music.
Defendant’s wife volunteered to help the victim’s parents, who were new to the community, when they needed babysitting services. Defendant and his wife provided these babysitting services while the victim’s mother was giving birth to another child. The victim and her sister stayed with defendant and his wife from Monday, 31 January 1983, until Friday, 4 February 1983. Defendant and his witnesses testified in great detail as to the care defendant, defendant’s wife, and others, including defendant’s wife’s parents who were licensed foster care parents, provided the victim and her sister during this week. Without detailing all of this evidence, I think it fair to say that it does tend to support defendant’s innocence of the crime charged.
In addition to this factual evidence, defendant offered several character witnesses who were well acquainted with defendant and who testified that he had a good reputation in the community. Finally, defendant called as a witness a ten-year-old boy who visited defendant’s home while the victim was there. The boy testified that while he and the victim were alone in defendant’s living room on Monday, 31 January, the victim tried to pull his pants down.
I mention this evidence for the defendant to demonstrate that this was a close, hard-fought case on the issue of guilt.
Much of the offending evidence came in during what I consider to be improper cross-examination of the defendant. In addition to the cross-examination detailed in the majority opinion concerning defendant’s activities at Thoms Rehabilitation Center and the incident involving marijuana, defendant was cross-examined about a restaurant he owned in 1974 called “Leon’s.” The following colloquy occurred:
Q. And basically it was a hangout for teenagers, is that correct?
A. No, ma’am, not basically. It was basically a restaurant.
Q. What did you serve in the restaurant?
*419A. I served — When I started out there, I served three meals a day. And then I changed when I started selling beer. That’s when I started to getting the young folks in there.
Q. Well, after a while, didn’t it become sort of like what you call a teenage hangout in the evening, sir?
A. No, ma’am. I never — I never discontinued to serve food as long as I was there.
Q. Well, in the evening hours during the time that you were running ‘Leon’s’ —
Mr. SWAIN: Objection, Your Honor.
Q. (Ms. Carlisle continues) — Mr. Burgin, would you say in the evening hours your main clientele were young people?
A. Yes, ma’am.
Mr. Swain: Object.
COURT: Overruled.
Exception No. 2
Under the rules of evidence prevailing when this case was tried, a defendant who testified could be cross-examined for purposes of impeachment about specific acts of misconduct; but general inquiries concerning broad ranges of activity which may or may not be misconduct were not permitted. State v. Shane, 304 N.C. 643, 651-52, 285 S.E. 2d 813, 819 (1982) (error to ask on cross-examination whether defendant “resigned from the intelligence unit because of sexual improprieties . . .” because the question was not designed to elicit an affirmance or denial “of ‘some identifiable specific act’ by means of a detailed reference to ‘the time or the place or the victim or any of the circumstances of defendant’s alleged prior misconduct’ ”); accord, State v. Purcell, 296 N.C. 728, 732-33, 252 S.E. 2d 772, 775 (1979). See also, State v. Mason, 295 N.C. 584, 592-93, 248 S.E. 2d 241, 247 (1978), where this Court held the question, “Were you involved in what you call street gang operations in New York?” inappropriate cross-examination for impeachment purposes.
Except for the question about whether defendant had sold marijuana to Rebecca Smith, none of the complained of cross-*420examination referred to alleged specific acts of misconduct. Yet the examination solely by innuendo and suggestion tended to portray defendant in a bad light before the jury and could have inclined the jury to want to convict him because of these innuendoes rather than the evidence relevant to the issue of his guilt.
Finally, the cross-examination of defendant’s wife attempted to convey to the jury, again through innuendo and suggestion, that defendant did not have a good relationship with his children. This cross-examination was improper for impeachment purposes and had no relevancy to any issue being tried. Its only purpose, again, was to belittle the defendant in the eyes of the jury and incline the jury to want to convict him for reasons other than evidence of his guilt.
I do not think these instances of improper cross-examination can be sustained on the theory that somehow the defendant “opened the door” to these lines of inquiry by stating on direct examination that he had never “had any problems with young children or any kind of sexual problems” or that he had been convicted of possessing marijuana while “operating a restaurant” some years before. The cross-examination, except by innuendo and suggestion, does not tend to refute these assertions. Further, it is improper “to go into the details of the crime by which the witness is being impeached. Such details usually distract the jury from the issues properly before it, harm the witness and inject confusion into the trial of the case. . . . [T]he time and place of the conviction and the punishment imposed may be inquired into upon cross-examination.” State v. Finch, 293 N.C. 132, 141, 235 S.E. 2d 819, 825 (1977).
Whether by the “plain error” doctrine or, as the concurring opinion suggests, in “the interest of justice,” I believe the extensive cross-examination of defendant and defendant’s wife about matters irrelevant to the question of guilt or the witness’s credibility yet which solely by innuendo and suggestion paints defendant as a “bad man” before the jury warrants a new trial.