State Of North Carolina v. Blue

• Decision Date: 05 October 2010
• Docket Number: No. COA09-1717.,COA09-1717.
• Citation: 699 S.E.2d 661
• Parties: STATE of North Carolinav.James Junior BLUE.
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

699 S.E.2d 661

STATE of North Carolinav.James Junior BLUE.

No. COA09-1717.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Oct. 5, 2010.

Appeal by defendant from judgments entered 17 December 2008 by Judge Ola M. Lewis in Robeson County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 17 August 2010.

Roy Cooper, Attorney General, by Robert C. Montgomery, Special Deputy Attorney General, and John G. Barnwell, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.

William D. Spence, Kinston, for defendant-appellant.

MARTIN, Chief Judge.

Defendant was indicted for first degree rape, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and first degree murder. He entered pleas of not guilty. Following a trial, a jury found defendant guilty of second degree rape, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and first degree murder. He appeals from the judgments entered upon the verdicts. After careful consideration of the arguments presented on appeal, we conclude defendant received a fair trial, free from prejudicial error.

The evidence at defendant's trial tended to show that the defendant lived with his mother, Gail Blue Bullard, his stepfather, James Bullard, and his twelve-year-old daughter in Maxton, North Carolina. The first week of November 2005, James Bullard became ill and required hospitalization. In order that she might attend to her husband in the hospital, Gail Bullard arranged for her mother, Shirley Locklear, to come to her home to care for defendant's daughter. On the following Saturday, 5 November, Mrs. Locklear's daughter, Flora May Hunt, went to the Bullard home to take Mrs. Locklear supper and took defendant's daughter home with her to spend Saturday night. Before leaving, Ms. Hunt arranged for Mrs. Locklear to call her the next morning and go to church.

On Sunday, 6 November, Mrs. Locklear did not call Ms. Hunt, nor did she go to church. That afternoon, Ms. Hunt went to the Bullard home to check on Mrs. Locklear. Defendant was at the home, but Mrs. Locklear was not there. Defendant told Ms. Hunt that Mrs. Locklear's sister, “Aunt Otis”, had come by and that Mrs. Locklear had gone with her. Ms. Hunt checked with “Aunt Otis” and learned that Mrs. Locklear was not with her. When Ms. Hunt questioned defendant further about his grandmother's whereabouts, he became upset and left in his mother's Mustang automobile.

Ms. Hunt notified other family members that Mrs. Locklear was not at the Bullard home. Family members searched the area around the house but were unable to locate Mrs. Locklear. The Robeson County Sheriff's Department was notified that Mrs. Locklear was missing. Officers were sent to the Bullard home and took a report. They were called back to the home early on the morning of 7 November when it was reported that a rug was missing from the kitchen area of the residence. At that point, they found some blood spatters in the kitchen and a broken ceiling fan blade.

Jeffrey Blue, Mrs. Locklear's son and defendant's uncle, saw defendant driving the Mustang in the early morning hours of 7 November and began following him. Defendant accelerated and began swerving as Jeffrey Blue followed him into Hoke County. Jeffrey Blue called 911. He followed defendant onto a dirt road, where defendant drove the Mustang into a ditch, got out of the car, and began running. Jeffrey Blue chased defendant, tackled him, and restrained him until Robeson County Deputy Sheriff Bass arrived and placed defendant in handcuffs. Jeffrey Blue asked defendant if Mrs. Locklear was alive and defendant answered “no.”

Defendant was taken by Deputy Bass to a convenience store in Maxton where they were met by Detectives Randy McGirt and Ricky Britt. The detectives read defendant his Miranda rights, and defendant agreed to talk with them and to show them where Mrs. Locklear's body was located. Defendant told Detective Britt that he had a drug problem and that he had taken $200 from his grandmother. Defendant led the officers and Jeffrey Blue to a dirt logging road where they found a body wrapped in a green and white rug and a blue tarp, tied with wire. Defendant told the officers that the body was that of his grandmother, Mrs. Locklear, and that he had beaten her with a piece of wood and a pot and choked her with a cord. He also told the officers that he had sex with Mrs. Locklear before he killed her.

Defendant was taken to the Robeson County Sheriff's Department, where he was interviewed by Detective Britt and SBI Special Agent Trent Bullard. He was cooperative, reviewed the written statement which the officers had prepared from the interview, made some changes, and then signed the statement. In his statement, he said that he had consumed crack cocaine and alcohol, and that after Flora Hunt had left the house with his daughter, he “just stood around trying to find a way to get some more money so [he] could get some more cocaine.” He described how he got a piece of wood from the porch and went into the house. Defendant stated:

Nobody was there but grandmother. After I got inside she was sitting in a chair in the living room. I walked in my bedroom and I just stood there. I just stood there about 15 minutes, and I was thinking. I was thinking was it worth killing Grandmother and could I get away with it. I didn't want to ask Grandmother for the money because she would have known it was for dope. I believe if I would have asked her that she would have given me some money.

He then described how, while his grandmother was still sitting in her chair, he hit her on the head with the piece of wood. She stood up, and he hit her again. The second time he hit her, the wood broke. They began to struggle, and defendant began to beat her on the head with a cooking pot. Defendant hit her with the pot “about seven times” and kicked her twice. While beating her with the pot, defendant broke a blade off the ceiling fan. He said that while his grandmother was still alive and telling him to stop, he pulled her nightgown over her face, had sex with her, and ejaculated inside of her.

Defendant said that he then went to the bathroom to clean up. When he returned, his grandmother was still making noises in the kitchen. Defendant cut the cord off a recording machine and wrapped it around her neck, and put tape over her nose and mouth.

Defendant said that he searched for, and found, his grandmother's wallet and took money out of it. After cleaning up some blood, defendant left the house and went to buy cocaine and beer. Returning home, defendant smoked some of the cocaine, and then got a blue tarp, Clorox, and rags to do more cleaning. He rolled up Mrs. Locklear's body in the tarp, tied it with wire, and loaded it into a cart, which he towed with his mother's car to the ditch where it was later found. Deputy Bruce Meares, a crime scene investigator with the Robeson County Sheriff's Department, testified that when he unwrapped the tarp from Mrs. Locklear's body, there was a strong odor of Clorox. Deputy Meares also went to the Bullard residence where he collected samples of blood stains, a pot, a tape recorder with the cord cut off, and various other items. Defendant consented to providing hair and saliva samples.

North Carolina Chief Medical Examiner Dr. John Butts participated in an autopsy of Mrs. Locklear's body on 8 November 2005. Dr. Butts testified that there were multiple fractures to Mrs. Locklear's skull, injury to her underlying brain, multiple fractured ribs, and a fracture to her backbone. Dr. Butts also testified that there was a tear and bruising in the opening of Mrs. Locklear's vagina. Dr. Butts further testified that pressure had been applied to her throat and that there was a ligature mark around Mrs. Locklear's neck which was consistent with the electrical cord found with her body. Dr. Butts opined that Mrs. Locklear died “as a result of multiple blows to the head fracturing the skull, but she also had evidence of ligature strangulation.” Vaginal and rectal smears taken during the autopsy revealed the presence of spermatozoa and a forensic DNA analyst with the SBI testified that defendant could not be excluded as a contributor to the DNA profile obtained from the sperm fraction of the vaginal swabs taken from the victim.

Defendant did not testify, but offered evidence through the testimony of Floyd Freeman, Jr. that he had bought cocaine from Freeman three times on 5 November 2005. Freeman testified that when he sold defendant cocaine for the third time, around 11:30 p.m., that he told defendant he should not be driving because he had been drinking. On cross-examination, Freeman testified that defendant was understandable, but slurring, was not having any problems driving, and had no trouble counting his money.

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I.

On appeal, defendant challenges the sufficiency of the State's evidence to submit to the jury the charges of first degree murder, robbery with a dangerous weapon and rape, and contends the trial court erred by denying his motions to dismiss those charges. In reviewing these arguments, our review is limited to determining “ ‘whether there is substantial evidence (1) of each essential element of the offense charged, or of a lesser offense included therein, and (2) of defendant's being the perpetrator of such offense. If so, the motion is properly denied.’ ” State v. Fritsch, 351 N.C. 373, 378, 526 S.E.2d 451, 455 (quoting State v. Powell, 299 N.C. 95, 98, 261 S.E.2d 114, 117 (1980)) cert. denied, 531 U.S. 890, 121 S.Ct. 213, 148 L.Ed.2d 150 (2000). “In reviewing challenges to the sufficiency of evidence, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, giving the State the benefit of all reasonable inferences.” Id. at 378-79, 526 S.E.2d at 455 (citing State v. Benson, 331 N.C. 537, 544, 417 S.E.2d 756, 761 (1992)). “Further, ‘[t]he defendant's evidence, unless favorable to the State, is not to be taken into consideration.’ ” State v. Hood, 332 N.C. 611, 621, 422 S.E.2d 679, 685 (1992) (quoting State v. Jones, 280 N.C. 60, 66, 184...