State Carolina v. Phillips

• Decision Date: 16 June 2011
• Docket Number: No. 48A08.,48A08.
• Citation: 711 S.E.2d 122,365 N.C. 103
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolinav.Mario Lynn PHILLIPS.

365 N.C. 103

711 S.E.2d 122

STATE of North Carolina

v.Mario Lynn PHILLIPS.

No. 48A08.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

June 16, 2011.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Appeal as of right pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A–27(a) from judgments imposing a sentence of death entered by Judge James M. Webb on 17 October 2007 in Superior Court, Moore County, upon jury verdicts finding defendant guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. On 30 April 2009, the Supreme Court allowed defendant's motion to bypass the Court of Appeals as to his appeal of additional judgments. Heard in the Supreme Court 15 February 2010.

Roy Cooper, Attorney General, by Robert C. Montgomery, Special Deputy Attorney General, and Charles E. Reece, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.

Staples S. Hughes, Appellate Defender, by Barbara S. Blackman and Anne M. Gomez, Assistant Appellate Defenders, for defendant-appellant.

EDMUNDS, Justice.

In the early morning hours of 19 December 2003, Fayetteville police notified defendant that his brother had been shot. Defendant, who had been drinking heavily in addition to using marijuana and Ecstasy the night before, apparently assumed his brother was dead and continued to consume alcohol and drugs after hearing the news. Later that morning, defendant, his girlfriend Renee McLaughlin (McLaughlin), and his friend Sean Ray (Ray) drove to Moore County to tell defendant's mother about the shooting. Afterwards, they visited Daryl Hobson (Hobson) at the Carolina Lakes Trailer Park in Carthage to buy more marijuana. Hobson had none for sale but accompanied them to the nearby mobile home belonging to Eddie Ryals (Ryals), who he understood had drugs. There they met twenty-one-year-old Ryals, his fifteen-year-old girlfriend Amanda Cooke (Cooke),¹ eighteen-year-old Carl Justice (Justice), and nineteen-year-old Joseph Harden (Harden).

Cooke testified that after thirty to thirty-five minutes of conversation, Ryals stood up to use the bathroom, turning his back to defendant for the first time. Defendant pulled a pistol from his trousers, asked where Ryals's money and drugs were, then opened fire, shooting Ryals once in the chest and once in the abdomen. He also shot Justice once in the chest. When Ryals fell, defendant kicked him, then grabbed Ryals's shotgun from the corner of the room and beat him in the face with it, demanding money and drugs. Cooke's trial testimony described a chaotic scene, and Ryals's autopsy revealed that he was also stabbed in the neck during the melee. Ryals repeatedly said he had nothing and they could take what they wanted. He also asked them not to hurt Cooke.

Defendant turned to approach Harden, who was sitting in a chair across the room, and shot him in the chest. At some point, Harden also suffered a nonfatal stab wound to the chest. Defendant reloaded his revolver, inserting individual shells into the cylinder without apparent difficulty.

Defendant, McLaughlin, and Ray instructed Cooke and Hobson to move to the kitchen, where the doors to the outside were less accessible. Defendant and Ray dragged Ryals to the kitchen, and Ray told Cooke and Hobson to lie down on the floor. After instructing Ray and McLaughlin to make sure Cooke and Hobson did not move, defendant went through Ryals's residence searching for drugs and money.

Cooke pleaded to be released, claiming she had a baby, but defendant told her to shut up and that they could not leave any witnesses. Cooke asked McLaughlin if she could go to the bathroom, but defendant told McLaughlin to refuse the request, adding that Cooke should urinate on herself. Someone knocked on the door of Ryals's trailer, and Ray put his hand over Cooke's mouth and told her not to say a word. After the knocking stopped, defendant handed Ray a kitchen knife and told him to deal with Cooke and Hobson so that defendant would not be the only person in trouble. Defendant shot Hobson in the neck at point-blank range and Ray stabbed Hobson in the chest, inflicting a fatal wound.² Ray then tried to slip his hand down inside Cooke's shirt. When she threw him off and rose to her feet, defendant saw them struggling and, from a distance of approximately five feet, shot Cooke twice, once in the chest and once in the side, causing her to fall. Defendant gave Ray another knife and ordered him to “finish [Cooke] off.” Ray stabbed Cooke once and began to get up from the floor, but when defendant expressed scorn, Ray stabbed her more than twenty times.

Cooke wavered in and out of consciousness but observed defendant and the others pouring gasoline in Ryals's residence and setting it afire. Defendant, McLaughlin, and Ray left the residence, although Ray paused long enough to grab Cooke by the hair and slash her throat. Once they were gone, Cooke crawled out the back door and around to the front yard. She saw an open-bed pickup truck approaching and, briefly believing help was at hand, closed her eyes. Instead, she heard defendant and Ray say they were going to kill her and, looking up, saw that defendant, Ray, and McLaughlin had emerged from the truck.

Defendant and Ray placed Cooke in the back of the truck amid several bags of garbage, and defendant then drove the truck around a corner and backed up to a trash pile. When the truck bogged down in sand and the sirens of approaching fire trucks could be heard, defendant, Ray, and McLaughlin fled, abandoning Cooke in the truck.

Cooke survived her ordeal, though she was hospitalized for thirteen days and endured numerous surgeries. Ryals, Hobson, Justice, and Harden died. Their bodies were recovered from Ryals's residence after Cameron Fire Department firefighters extinguished the blaze. Autopsies revealed that Harden died as a result of a gunshot wound to the heart, Hobson died from stab wounds to his chest, Ryals died as a result of being both shot in and stabbed in the heart, and Justice died from of a gunshot wound to the heart. Defendant was apprehended a few hours later in his mother's mobile home, across the street from Ryals's residence.

Later that day, defendant gave a detailed confession to Detective Sergeant Timothy Davis of the Moore County Sheriff's Department. In his statement, defendant said that he shot Ryals and another male with a shotgun and Hobson and another male with a pistol. He further stated that Ray stabbed the victims after defendant shot them “to make sure that they were dead.” At trial, defendant's former cellmate Frederick Brown testified that defendant told him he was incarcerated “for murder” that occurred during “an attempted robbery.” According to Brown, defendant told him that he shot “Eddie” (Ryals) twice with a revolver and then shot everyone else in the residence after they lay on the floor. Defendant added that he told “Sean” (Ray) to stab everyone to make sure they were dead. Brown also testified that defendant said to him, “Brown, these crackers think that I'm crazy, so I'm just playing it off to get life and not death.” Additional facts will be set out as necessary for discussion and analysis of the issues.

Defendant was indicted for four counts of first-degree murder. In addition, he was indicted for robbery of Ryals with a dangerous weapon, attempted murder of Cooke, aggravated first-degree kidnapping of Cooke (presented in two indictments), assault on Cooke with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and first-degree arson. After the close of evidence during the guilt-innocence portion of the trial, the court dismissed one indictment for first-degree kidnapping. On 10 October 2007, the jury found defendant guilty of all four counts of first-degree murder. Each of the murder verdicts was based on malice, premeditation, and deliberation. In addition, each murder conviction was based on felony murder with the underlying felonies being robbery with a firearm and arson. The jury also found defendant guilty of first-degree kidnapping, attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, robbery with a firearm, and first-degree arson. Following a capital sentencing hearing, the jury recommended a sentence of death for each murder conviction. Defendant appealed his capital convictions to this Court, and we allowed his motion to bypass the Court of Appeals as to his other convictions.

PRETRIAL MATTERS

Defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the statement he made to Detective Davis shortly after he was apprehended. Although the trial court did not resolve this motion until the trial was under way, it was filed prior to trial, so we will consider this matter along with defendant's other pretrial issues. In his motion, defendant argued that he was denied his statutory and constitutional rights to an attorney when appointed provisional counsel, who was attempting to meet with him because he was a person over the age of seventeen charged with murder, was denied access to him at the time he made the statement. In addition, defendant argued in the motion that he was substantially impaired from drugs and alcohol and unable to understand the consequences of his actions when he waived his Miranda rights.

We first consider defendant's contention that he was improperly denied access to counsel. The record indicates that when defendant was arrested, he was taken to the Moore County Sheriff's Office. Upon defendant's arrival, Detective Davis gave him a printed form setting out his Miranda rights and read through the form with him. Defendant legibly wrote his full initials, “MLP,” next to printed statements on the form informing him of his rights, acknowledging each. Most pertinent to defendant's motion to suppress, he initialed the form to acknowledge his understanding that (1) he had the right to speak to a lawyer for advice before being questioned and to have that lawyer present during questioning, and (2) if he could not afford a lawyer, he could have one appointed for him before any...