State v. Wagner
Decision Date | 19 February 2002 |
Docket Number | No. COA01-144.,COA01-144. |
Citation | 148 NC App. 658,560 S.E.2d 174 |
Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Belvin E. WAGNER. |
Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Joan M. Cunningham, for the State.
J. Clark Fischer, Winston-Salem, for defendant-appellant.
Defendant appeals his conviction and sentence as an habitual felon for attempted possession of cocaine and felonious possession of drug paraphernalia. The pertinent facts are as follows: On 18 July 1998, officers of the Winston-Salem Police Department's Street Drug Enforcement Unit conducted an undercover operation designed to target drug buyers. As part of this operation, an officer posed as a street drug dealer and sold counterfeit crack cocaine to soliciting customers. At approximately 5:00 p.m. that day, defendant approached an undercover officer and asked for some "breaks" (a street term for a small piece of crack cocaine broken from a larger piece). The officer displayed three counterfeit pieces and asked defendant, "How much?" Defendant responded that he had $30, and a sale of three counterfeit pieces resulted. Defendant was searched and officers retrieved the three counterfeit pieces and a chrome pipe commonly used for smoking crack cocaine. Defendant was arrested for attempted possession of cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia.
At the time of defendant's arrest, the Forsyth County District Attorney's Office had procedures in place which sought to expedite repeat offenders' cases by offering them a mitigated sentence if they agreed early in the process to plead guilty. Pursuant to a plea agreement, on 17 August 1998, defendant appeared before the trial court and, based on a bill of information, entered a guilty plea to attempted possession of cocaine while having a status as an habitual felon. He then received a mitigated sentence of 101 to 131 months.
Approximately one year later, defendant filed a Motion for Appropriate Relief (MAR) alleging an error in the calculation of his sentence. On 2 May 2000, the trial court granted defendant's MAR, vacating his guilty plea and setting aside his sentence. Thereafter, defendant's case was assigned to another prosecutor, who, after reviewing the file, obtained indictments which charged defendant with attempted possession of cocaine, felonious possession of drug paraphernalia, and being an habitual felon. This prosecutor then offered defendant a second plea agreement which would have resulted in a sentence identical to the one he had previously received. However, defendant rejected the offer and moved to dismiss the indictment for felonious possession of drug paraphernalia. The trial court denied defendant's motion and he was convicted of both charges. After defendant was determined to have the status of habitual felon on each charge, he received consecutive sentences of 135 to 171 months.
With his appeal, defendant raises two issues: (1) whether his being indicted for felonious possession of drug paraphernalia was the result of prosecutorial vindictiveness; and (2) whether his being sentenced to consecutive terms of 135 to 171 months violates the expressed provisions of N.C. Gen.Stat. § 15A-1335.
Defendant first contends his being indicted for felonious possession of drug paraphernalia violates his right to due process in that it was the result of prosecutorial vindictiveness. He maintains that since the indictment was only intended to punish him for having successfully challenged his prior sentence, it should have been dismissed.
73 L.Ed.2d at 81-82; see also United States v. Wilson, 262 F.3d 305, 314 (4th Cir.2001). Here, defendant concedes he has no direct evidence of actual vindictiveness on the part of the prosecutor. Rather, he urges this Court to presume a vindictive motive from the circumstances leading up to his felonious possession of drug paraphernalia indictment.
However, in Smith, the U.S. Supreme Court held the mere fact that a defendant received a greater sentence following a trial after he had successfully challenged a guilty plea did not warrant a similar presumption. Smith, 490 U.S. at 795, 109 S.Ct. at 2202, 104 L.Ed.2d at 870. There, the Court reasoned that in many such cases the greater sentence was more likely attributed to factors which were not considered at the time of the guilty plea but had been following a trial. Id. at 801, 109 S.Ct. at 2206, 104 L.Ed.2d at 873-74. With this background in mind, we turn to whether the circumstances presented in this case present a realistic likelihood of vindictiveness for all similarly situated cases. Defendant relies on two facts which he contends are sufficient to support such a presumption: (1) the State did not proceed on the charge of felonious possession of drug paraphernalia in the plea agreement but only after he successfully challenged his guilty plea, and (2) the present indictment was based upon facts known by the State for more than two years.
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...motive may be presumed and the State has failed to provide affirmative evidence to overcome the presumption. State v. Wagner , 148 N.C. App. 658, 661, 560 S.E.2d 174, 176 (emphasis omitted), rev’d in part on other grounds , 356 N.C. 599, 572 S.E.2d 777 (2002). Thus, if a defendant shows tha......
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