Court Opinion

ID: 9560869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:57:52.170403+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:16.442052
License: Public Domain

ELMORE, Judge
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
As to sections II and III of the majority’s opinion, I fully concur. However, because section I stretches Rule 609 beyond its plain language and blurs the distinction between Rule 404(b) and Rule 609, I must dissent from it.
Defendant was indicted for possessing cocaine with an intent to sell, manufacture, or deliver. Defendant stipulated that the substance found by Officer Skewes was indeed cocaine, but contested any evidence of possession. Defendant intended to prove his innocence of the crime charged by testifying that he did not throw anything down while running from Officer Skewes. The State, in proving defendant’s intent, sought to introduce evidence from two of his previous crimes under Rule 404(b). After a discussion outside the presence of the jury, the trial court ruled that the State’s proffer of two prior crimes involving cocaine was admissible under Rule 404(b) to prove knowledge and intent.
*411Thus, during trial, the State called Officer Gary Womble of the Fayetteville Police Department. Officer Womble testified that he had previously pulled over a car driven by a person who he knew to have a revoked license. Defendant was one of the occupants of the car, and when he was being taken out a small baggy fell from his waistband. Defendant responded by trying to kick it under the car. Upon retrieval, Officer Womble testified that due to its distinctive packaging he considered it to be cocaine that was ready to sell. Officer Womble then compared a picture of the packaged cocaine that fell from defendant’s waistband to the packaged cocaine in the current case, determining that the packaging and appearance was very similar.
Next, the State called Lieutenant Chuck Parker with the Cumberland County Sheriffs Office. Lieutenant Parker testified that he had previously arrested defendant after witnessing defendant begin to run upon his arrival, and throw a small bag into a vent under a house. After the bag was retrieved it was identified as packaged small amounts of cocaine. The State also asked Lieutenant Parker to make a comparison between the package thrown down previously and the package retrieved in this case. He too said the packages were very similar.
Then, the State called Tamara Wojtal with the Cumberland County Superior Court Clerk’s Office to testify. She testified that defendant had pled guilty to possession with intent to sell cocaine in the incidents involving Officer Womble and Lieutenant Parker. The State used her to review the contents of defendant’s files on the two prior incidents, including the arrest warrants, indictments, and plea transcripts. Ms. Wojtal did not testify to the underlying circumstances of defendant’s convictions but just that defendant was twice convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to sell based upon guilty pleas. After all three witnesses had testified in the State’s casein-chief the trial court provided only the limiting instruction discussed in the majority opinion: one that addresses Rule 404(b), not Rule 609. See, e.g., N.C.P.I. — Crim. 104.15 (1984) (dealing with Rule 404(b)); N.C.P.I. — Crim. 105.40 (1986) (dealing with convictions under Rule 609).
With these facts before it, the majority holds that the “inherently prejudicial” error created by allowing the deputy clerk to testify as she did was nonetheless rendered essentially harmless solely because defendant took the stand in his own defense. I cannot agree. The distinctions between Rules 404(b) and 609 are fundamental to the State’s. *412ability to place relevant evidence before the trier of fact and a defendant’s decision to testify on his own behalf.
Rule 404(b) states that although evidence of other crimes is not admissible “to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith[,] [i]t may, however, be admissible • for other purposes, such as . . . intent. . . [or] knowledge . ...” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 404(b) (2003). Although this subsection is one of “inclusion,” see State v. Lloyd, 354 N.C. 76, 88, 552 S.E.2d 596, 608 (2001), that tilt toward inclusion is limited to the underlying evidence or circumstances of a prior crime, and does not include evidence of the conviction itself.
A comparison of the plain language of Rule 609 and Rule 404 indicates that prior convictions are admissible under Rule 609, while evidence of other crimes is admissible under Rule 404(b). Furthermore, it is clear that Rule 609 does not permit the introduction of the evidence underlying the prior convictions; I believe that, similarly, Rule 404(b) generally does not permit the introduction of prior convictions.
State v. Wilkerson, 148 N.C. App. 310, 320-21, 559 S.E.2d 5, 12 (Wynn, J., dissenting), rev’dper curiam, 356 N.C. 418, 571 S.E.2d 583 (2002) (adopting the reasoning of Judge Wynn’s dissent). Introduction of the conviction is controlled by Rule 609, which states:
For the purpose of attacking the credibility of a witness, evidence that the witness has been convicted of a felony, or of a Class Al, Class 1, or Class 2 misdemeanor, shall be admitted if elicited/rom the witness or established by public record during cross-examination or thereafter.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 609(a) (2003) (emphasis added). Importantly, impeaching a defendant’s credibility or character is not one of the permissible uses of a prior crime under Rule 404(b). See State v. Cook, 165 N.C. App. 630, 637, 599 S.E.2d 67, 72 (2004); Wilkerson, 148 N.C. App. at 319, 559 S.E.2d at 11. To the contrary, by its plain language Rule 609 controls impeachment and limits the timing and manner in which prior convictions can be admitted: “during cross-examination or thereafter,” not before the witness testifies.
If a defendant does not testify, any record of his convictions is rarely admissible, since the sole purpose of that record is to allow the jury to assess his character for truthfulness. See Wilkerson, 148 N.C. *413App. at 319, 559 S.E.2d at 11; N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 609 (2003) (official commentary). When a defendant has not testified, his character for truthfulness is irrelevant. Thus the choice for a defendant is always testify and be cross-examined on his prior convictions that will undercut the credibility of what he took the stand to prove, or remain silent, allowing the State to use the similar nature of his previous crimes against him, but not the convictions themselves. Yet, the majority’s opinion renders this fundamental choice negligible by allowing the State to introduce prior convictions ostensibly under Rule 609, as well as underlying evidence of those convictions under Rule 404(b), and then allow the defendant to render its error harmless or gamer himself a new trial under Wilkerson. I cannot condone using Rules 404(b) and 609 to force a defendant to take the stand and attempt to rehabilitate himself before the jury, rendering the State’s error harmless, or remain silent and risk a conviction hoping that our Court will be unable to distinguish Wilkerson. See, e.g., State v. McCoy, 174 N.C. App. 105, — S.E.2d —, — (2005) (“Because we are unable to distinguish this case [in which a conviction was admitted under 404(b)] from Wilkerson, we conclude that the trial court committed prejudicial error entitling defendant to a new trial.”).
Contrary to the majority’s interpretation, State v. Hairston, 156 N.C. App. 202, 576 S.E.2d 121 (2003), does not support this reasoning. Although mentioning Rule 609 in its analysis of the issue presented, Hairston noted that the Rule allows for impeaching “a defendant’s credibility as a witness if the evidence of the convictions is ‘elicited from the witness or estáblished by public record during cross-examination or thereafter.’ ” Id. at 204, 576 S.E.2d at 123 (quoting N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 609 (2003)). Implicitly, by the emphasis placed on the text of the rule, the Hairston court recognized that Rule 609 was inapplicable to convictions being introduced by a deputy clerk during the State’s case-in-chief. Yet, here, the majority applies it. Further, other than the fact that the defendant in Hairston testified, the Court there does not explain why it is apply-. ing a “different” prejudicial analysis to the error than that of the Supreme Court in Wilkerson. See Hairston, 156 N.C. App. at 205, 576 S.E.2d at 123 (“However, unlike Wilkerson, defendant here testified and was cross-examined about his prior convictions. Thus, we must determine whether the error was sufficiently prejudicial to defendant so as to require a new trial under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1447(a) (2001).”); Wilkerson, 148 N.C. App. at 328, 559 S.E.2d at 16 (admitting the bare fact of conviction is “inherently prejudicial such that any *414probative value of the conviction is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.”).
Defendant taking the stand here does not change the trial court’s erroneous and “inherently prejudicial” conclusion that the deputy clerk’s testimony was admissible. Nothing about the discussion below concerning the deputy clerk’s testimony suggested that she was being called “for the purpose of attacking the credibility” of defendant, and nothing about the trial court’s limiting instruction suggested that the jury should limit using the clerk’s testimony to a credibility assessment. Further, nothing about allowing the State to preemptively impeach defendant with his convictions in its case-in-chief, (or do so by having the deputy clerk testify instead of just facing a denial of the conviction with an introduction of a certified copy of the record), is congruent with Rule 609.
As Judge Wynn noted in Wilkerson:
By permitting the State to introduce the bare fact of a defendant’s prior conviction, we permit the jury to surmise that the defendant, having once formed the necessary intent or developed the requisite mens rea, undoubtedly did so again; after all, another jury has already conclusively branded the defendant a criminal. Such leaps of logic, which inescapably treat the prior conviction as propensity evidence, are prohibited by Rule 404(b); the defendant is impeached without ever taking the stand, and is ineluctably labeled a criminal by the present jury. Thus, introducing the bare fact of a prior conviction under Rule 404(b) fails to satisfy the Rule 403 balancing test, as the only fair interpretation of the purpose behind the State’s introduction of such evidence is impermissible: that the evidence is being offered to show the defendant’s predisposition to commit the crime charged.
Wilkerson, 148 N.C. App. at 328, 559 S.E.2d at 16. Even though defendant took the stand here, the impression on the jury, and thus the prejudice to defendant, are exactly the same. The State even argued as such in its closing statement.
Look at the type of crime, ladies and gentlemen. Possession with intent to sell or deliver cocaine, that’s what he was convicted of in these two cases, what he stands trial for in these two cases. Look at the location in these first two cases. Again, just a couple hundred yards away from each other, just one street corner to the next, the dates, April 8, 2003; November 5, 1997; August 21, 2000. *415He went to jail for that same charge and he is back out on the streets doing the same things.
I cannot agree with the majority that defendant received a fair trial free of prejudicial error just because he took the stand and rendered otherwise “inherently prejudicial” error harmless. Instead, I would remand defendant’s case for a new trial on the charge of possession with intent to sell or deliver cocaine.