Court Opinion

ID: 9853125
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:42:53.818322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:41.159022
License: Public Domain

Justice MARTIN
dissenting.
In State v. Allen, issued last month, this Court held that “Blakely errors arising under North Carolina’s Structured Sentencing Act are structural and, therefore, reversible per se.” 359 N.C. 425, 615 S.E.2d 256, — (July 1, 2005) (No. 485PA04). Three justices dissented, reasoning that controlling precedents of the United States Supreme Court compel the conclusion that Blakely errors, like the vast majority of both constitutional and non-constitutional errors, are subject to harmless-error analysis. See id. at 452, 615 S.E.2d at-(Martin, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). A week later, the Arizona Supreme Court, examining the same body of law that we analyzed in Allen, unanimously held that Blakely errors are not structural errors subject to per se reversal. State v. Henderson,-Ariz.-,-P.3d -(No. CR-04-0442-PR) (July 8, 2005). In issuing this opinion, the Arizona Supreme Court joined the growing chorus of state and federal courts to conclude that Blakely errors are subject to harmless-error review. See Allen, 359 N.C. at 467 n.13, 615 S.E.2d at-n.13 (Martin, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (citing numerous cases); see also Milligrock v. Alaska, -P.3d-, - (No. 1999) (Alaska Ct. App., July 29, 2005), available at http://www.state.ak.us/courts/ops/ap-1999.Ddf.
Like State v. Speight, 359 N.C. 602, 614 S.E.2d 262 (July 1, 2005) (No. 491PA04), the instant case perfectly illustrates the deleterious consequences of the majority’s categorical approach to Blakely errors. The sole aggravating factor in the instant case was the statutory (d)(12) aggravator, “defendant committed the offense while on pretrial release on another charge.” N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.16(d)(12) (2004). He did.
At no stage of these proceedings has there been any dispute over this simple, incontrovertible fact. At trial, former State Trooper S.D. Davis testified that he arrested defendant on 4 May 1996 in Pender County and charged him with driving while impaired (DWI) and driving while license revoked. On direct examination, the District Attorney elicited the following testimony from Trooper Davis:
*821Q: Looking at the front of the citation. Do you see a judgment in the area designated for judgment.
A: No, I do not.
Q: And that with respect to the driving while impaired charge, isn’t it?
A: Yes.
Q: With respect to the driving while license revoked charge, do you see a judgment?
A: No, I do not.
Q: If there is no judgment would it then have been pending at the time of February 27 of 1997?
A: Yes, sir.
The state then entered into evidence the citation completed by Trooper Davis. It is readily apparent from Trooper Davis’s testimony and the physical evidence of the citation itself that defendant’s charges for DWI and driving while license revoked were pending at the time of the fatal collision that gave rise to the instant charges. Defendant failed to object to the colloquy set out above and failed to present any evidence or argument to rebut Trooper Davis’s testimony that defendant was on pretrial release at the time he committed the present offenses.
Moreover, when asked by the trial court whether he “wishfed] to be heard as to sentencing,” the District Attorney responded as follows:
Yes, sir. I think that with respect to this single aggravating factor, the defendant committed the offense while on pretrial release for another charge, that being another DWI in Pender County as described by Trooper Davis, if the Court looks at this defendant’s history, that’s a pretty typical pattern over the last twenty-five years that this defendant has been involved with driving offenses and other violations.
Neither during this colloquy nor at any point during sentencing did defendant object to the District Attorney’s assertion that defendant was on pretrial release at the time of the instant offenses. Nor did defendant present any contrary evidence or argue that the (d)(12) aggravator should not be found or that it lacked aggravating value. *822Indeed, defendant’s only arguments at sentencing related to the presence of various statutory and non-statutory mitigating factors, all of which the trial court found to exist.
Taken together, Trooper Davis’s testimony, the 4 May 1996 citation, defendant’s failure to object, and defendant’s failure to present any arguments or evidence contesting the sole aggravating factor constitute uncontroverted and overwhelming evidence that defendant committed the crime while on pretrial release for another offense. In addition, the date of defendant’s pretrial release for charges then pending in Pender County is a matter of public record,.1 There can be no serious question that if the instant case were remanded to the trial court for a jury determination of the sole aggravating factor presented, the state would again offer evidence in support of that aggravator in the form of official state documents and the testimony of state record-keepers.
Defendant received a fair trial at which a jury of his peers determined beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of habitual impaired driving, driving while license revoked, possession of drug paraphernalia, transporting an open container, driving left of center, driving while impaired, felonious assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon, and second-degree murder for recklessly causing the death of a four-year-old girl. All of the facts essential to defendant’s punishment — save one — were submitted to a jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt. The only essential fact not found by the jury was the sole aggravating factor, that defendant committed the offense while on pretrial release for another crime, a matter of public record that was found by a judge based on uncontroverted and overwhelming evidence.
*823While the judicial fact-finding in the instant case undeniably violated the Sixth Amendment rule subsequently established by Blakely v. Washington, it is equally obvious that this particular constitutional error had no effect on the sentence defendant actually received. A central purpose of the harmless-error doctrine is to “block setting aside convictions for small errors or defects that have little, if any, likelihood of having changed the result of the trial.” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 22, 17 L. Ed. 2d 705, 709 (1967). To remand for resentencing so that a jury may go through the motions of reconfirming a simple and uncontroverted matter of public record “accomplishes nothing from a practical perspective, elevates form over substance, and unnecessarily undermines the salutary objectives that are undeniably effectuated by application of harmless-error review.” Allen, 359 N.C. at 473, 615 S.E.2d at-(Martin, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I respectfully dissent.
Chief Justice LAKE and Justice NEWBY join in this dissenting opinion.

. Parenthetically, the dates surrounding defendant’s periods of pretrial release are precisely the type of fact of which courts may take judicial notice. Rule 201 of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence permits courts to take judicial notice of facts that are “not subject to reasonable dispute in that [they] [are] . . . capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” N.C. R. Evid. 201(b). As a matter of public record, the dates of defendant’s pretrial release are “not subject to reasonable dispute.” Id. I acknowledge that in criminal cases a jury must be instructed “that it may, but is not required to, accept as conclusive any fact judicially noticed.” N.C. R. Evid. 201(g). I also acknowledge that our rules of evidence do not trump the requirements of the Sixth Amendment as articulated in Blakely. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that the aggravating factor at issue here— whether defendant was on pretrial release at the time of the instant offenses — is not the sort of factual determination that has traditionally been reserved exclusively for jury determination.