Court Opinion

ID: 9585899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:04:57.602959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:16.587898
License: Public Domain

Justice MITCHELL
concurring in the result and dissenting in part.
I concur in the result reached by the majority. I also concur in all parts of the opinion of the majority except that part by which the majority holds that the trial court erred in finding in aggravation that the offenses committed by the defendant were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. As to that part of the opinion of the majority, I dissent.
In my view the evidence before the trial court was sufficient to support the trial court’s determination under the Fair Sentencing Act that as to each crime “the facts of the case disclose excessive brutality, or physical pain, psychological suffering, or dehumanizing aspects not normally present in that offense.” State v. Blackwelder, 309 N.C. 410, 414, 306 S.E. 2d 783, 786 (1983). As the evidence was sufficient to support the trial court’s determination in this regard, it is my view that this Court must accept that determination.
The record reveals that the defendant stabbed the victim, the defendant’s brother, in plain view of the victim’s wife and son. When the wife protested and tried to stop the defendant’s murderous assault upon her husband, the defendant stabbed her in the abdomen causing her intestines to protrude in the presence of her son. The defendant then proceeded, after having been shot by the son, to pursue the son and attempt to stab him. The deadly tenacity exhibited by the defendant, together with his efforts to kill an entire family during this murderous course of conduct, were more than sufficient to show excessive brutality, physical pain, psychological suffering, or dehumanizing aspects not normally present in cases of murder in the second degree.
The evidence of the assault with intent to kill inflicting serious injury on the wife could be considered in determining whether the murder of the defendant’s brother was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel when compared to other murders in the second degree. The fact that the defendant committed a deadly assault on the murder victim’s wife and son during the course *428of the murder in the second degree, was sufficient to disclose excessive brutality, physical pain, psychological suffering or dehumanizing aspects not normally present in murder in the second degree.
For similar reasons the assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury upon the wife was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. Surely it cannot seriously be argued' that the killing of an assault victim’s husband and the attempt to kill her son did not disclose excessive brutality, psychological suffering and dehumanizing aspects not normally present in assaults such as that for which the defendant was convicted.
For these reasons, I believe the trial court properly found as a factor in aggravation that each of the crimes for which the defendant was convicted were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. I dissent from the holding of the majority to the contrary. I concur in the remainder of the opinion of the majority and in the result of remanding both cases for resentencing.
Justice MARTIN joins in this opinion.