State v. Lawrence

Decision Date16 June 2000
Docket NumberNo. 585A97.,585A97.
CourtNorth Carolina Supreme Court
PartiesSTATE of North Carolina v. Jimmie Wayne LAWRENCE.

Michael F. Easley, Attorney General, by Gail E. Weis, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State.

M. Gordon Widenhouse, Chapel Hill, for defendant-appellant.

PARKER, Justice.

Defendant Jimmie Wayne Lawrence was indicted on 10 February 1997 for first-degree murder in the killing of victim Dale Jerome McLean. On 3 March 1997 defendant was indicted for first-degree burglary. On 15 September 1997 defendant was indicted for conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and first-degree kidnapping for the kidnapping of victim Gwen Morrison. Defendant was tried capitally and found guilty of first-degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation and under the felony murder rule. He was also found guilty of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree burglary, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit murder. Following a capital sentencing proceeding, the jury recommended a sentence of death for the murder; and the trial court entered judgment accordingly. The trial court also sentenced defendant to consecutive sentences of 125 to 159 months' imprisonment for defendant's convictions of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder, 51 to 60 months' imprisonment for the first-degree burglary conviction, and 58 to 79 months' imprisonment for defendant's conviction of first-degree kidnapping. For the reasons discussed herein, we conclude that defendant's trial was free from prejudicial error.

The State's evidence tended to show that defendant and Gwen Morrison dated for almost two years and that their relationship ended in early December 1996. Morrison began living with Dale McLean in late December 1996. On 18 January 1997, Morrison and McLean were at home with McLean's two children, ten-year-old Chastity McLean and five-year-old Dale "Junior" McLean, when someone knocked on the back door. McLean looked out the window and said, "It's Jimmie." Morrison opened the door and stood on the top step in her nightgown and slippers.

Defendant was standing on the ground in front of the mobile home; and a man that Morrison had never seen before, William Rashad Lucas, was standing behind defendant holding a sawed-off shotgun. Defendant asked Morrison to leave with him. When Morrison refused, defendant pulled a nine millimeter handgun from the front of his pants. Morrison then told defendant that she did not want any trouble and that she would leave with him, but that she needed to get her shoes and coat first. Morrison turned toward the door and defendant ran up the steps, pushing Morrison through the door into the mobile home. As defendant and Morrison came through the door, Chastity and Junior were sitting in the living room and McLean was walking empty-handed down the hallway toward the door. Defendant pushed Morrison away and shot McLean, who grabbed his head and fell to the floor. Defendant stood over McLean and fired several more rounds. Defendant then grabbed Morrison by the arm and said that he would also kill her if she did not leave with him.

Defendant led Morrison outside and put her into the backseat of his vehicle. Lucas drove to defendant's house. Lucas told defendant that he should have shot Morrison, too, because she "was going to tell everything." Morrison, defendant, and Lucas then got into Lucas' car; and Lucas drove to the Comfort Inn in Sanford, North Carolina, where Lucas stayed in the car with Morrison while defendant rented a room. Once inside the room, Lucas put his shotgun on a bed and left; he returned thirty minutes later with a pair of jeans that belonged to his girlfriend. Lucas left again, and defendant took a shower after telling Morrison that he would kill her if she tried to leave.

Morrison sat on the bed while defendant showered. When defendant came out of the bathroom, he lay on the bed next to Morrison and fell asleep with his arm or leg over her body so that she could not leave the room. Defendant awoke later and asked Morrison to have sex with him. Morrison agreed out of fear that defendant would kill her if she refused him. Sometime thereafter, defendant returned a call to his mother and told her to have his father pick him up. He then told Morrison to put on the jeans that Lucas had brought earlier. Someone arrived at the Comfort Inn driving defendant's vehicle; defendant put the shotgun under the mattress and left. Morrison then called her cousin to come get her.

Meanwhile, after defendant and Lucas had driven away with Morrison, Chastity called her grandmother, who instructed Chastity to call the police. Shortly thereafter, members of the Harnett County Sheriff's Department arrived. The officers found no signs of life in McLean. A detective carried the children away from the crime scene, and Chastity calmed down enough to give a statement that defendant had shot her father.

The Lee County Sheriff's Department subsequently took defendant into custody; and with defendant's consent, several agents from the State Bureau of Investigation ("SBI") searched defendant's room at the Comfort Inn. The agents found the shotgun in the hotel room, and Lucas' girlfriend later turned over the nine-millimeter handgun to the Harnett County Sheriff's Department.

The pathologist who performed the autopsy on McLean found a total of nine gunshot wounds on McLean's body, all fired at a close range of no more than three feet. The gunshot wounds on McLean's right arm, nose, and forehead were not the fatal injuries. The cause of death was any one of the four bullets that entered McLean's brain through the right side of his skull. A forensic firearms examiner from the SBI determined that the shell casings collected at the scene from around McLean's body had been fired from defendant's nine-millimeter pistol.

Additional facts will be presented as needed to discuss specific issues.

PRETRIAL ISSUES

By two separate assignments of error, defendant contends that the short-form indictment used to charge him with first-degree murder is constitutionally inadequate. We initially address whether this issue is properly before this Court. Defendant did not contest the murder indictment at trial and, in fact, filed numerous motions stating that he was charged with first-degree murder and would be tried capitally. This Court has previously stated that "a constitutional question which is not raised and passed upon in the trial court will not ordinarily be considered on appeal." State v. Hunter, 305 N.C. 106, 112, 286 S.E.2d 535, 539 (1982). A defendant waives an attack on an indictment when the validity of the indictment is not challenged in the trial court. See State v. Wallace, 351 N.C. 481, 503, 528 S.E.2d 326, 341 (2000)

; State v. Robinson, 327 N.C. 346, 361, 395 S.E.2d 402, 411 (1990). "However, where an indictment is alleged to be invalid on its face, thereby depriving the trial court of its jurisdiction, a challenge to that indictment may be made at any time, even if it was not contested in the trial court." Wallace, 351 N.C. at 503,

528 S.E.2d at 341. Therefore, this issue is properly before this Court.

Defendant contends that the short-form murder indictment violated his right to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution in two respects. First, defendant argues that the United States Supreme Court's recent ruling in Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 232, 119 S.Ct. 1215, 1218-19, 143 L.Ed.2d 311, 319 (1999), requires a finding that the short-form indictment was unconstitutional in that it failed to allege all of the elements of the crime charged. Specifically, defendant argues that the short-form indictment failed to allege those elements that differentiate first-degree murder from second-degree murder. Second, defendant argues that Jones requires a finding that the short-form indictment was unconstitutional in that it failed to charge the aggravating circumstances that would increase the maximum penalty for first-degree murder from life imprisonment to the death penalty. See id. at 243 n. 6, 119 S.Ct. at 1224 n. 6, 143 L.Ed.2d at 326 n. 6.

The indictment against defendant for murder contained the following language:
The jurors for the State upon their oath present that on or about the date of offense shown and in the county named above [Jimmie Wayne Lawrence] unlawfully, willfully and feloniously and of malice aforethought did kill and murder Dale Jerome McLean.

This indictment complied with N.C.G.S. § 15-144, which provides for a short-form version of an indictment for murder as follows:

In indictments for murder and manslaughter, it is not necessary to allege matter not required to be proved on the trial; but in the body of the indictment, after naming the person accused, and the county of his residence, the date of the offense, the averment "with force and arms," and the county of the alleged commission of the offense, as is now usual, it is sufficient in describing murder to allege that the accused person feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought, did kill and murder (naming the person killed), and concluding as is now required by law;... and any bill of indictment containing the averments and allegations herein named shall be good and sufficient in law as an indictment for murder or manslaughter, as the case may be.

N.C.G.S. § 15-144 (1999). This Court has consistently held that indictments based on this statute are in compliance with both the North Carolina and United States Constitutions. See, e.g., State v. Kilpatrick, 343 N.C. 466, 472, 471 S.E.2d 624, 628 (1996)

; State v. Avery, 315 N.C. 1, 12-14, 337 S.E.2d 786, 792-93 (1985). Further, this Court recently reconsidered the constitutionality of the short-form murder indictment in light of Jones and noted that Jones "`announce[d][no] new principle of constitutional law, but merely interpret...

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