State v. Baldwin, 8229SC667
| Decision Date | 19 April 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 8229SC667,8229SC667 |
| Citation | 301 S.E.2d 725,61 N.C.App. 688 |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Terry Bruce BALDWIN. |
Atty. Gen. Rufus L. Edmisten, by Asst. Atty. Gen. Marilyn R. Rich, Raleigh, for the State.
Appellate Defender Adam Stein, by Asst. Appellate Defender Marc D. Towler, Raleigh, for the defendant-appellant.
Under G.S. § 14-39(a), unlawfully confining, restraining, or removing a person from one place to another without the consent of such person is kidnapping if one of the purposes of such confinement, restraint or removal is for the purpose of "terrorizing the person so confined, restrained, or removed...." It is under that part of the statute that defendant was indicted, tried and convicted.
Defense counsel stoutly contends--and has at every opportunity since the State rested--that the evidence does not suffice to show that defendant's purpose was to terrorize these youngsters and that the case against him should therefore be dismissed. Bearing in mind the oft-cited rules that we are obliged to follow in matters of this kind, a repetition of which here would be superfluous, we disagree.
Gratuitously accosting three smaller and younger boys in a strange, unprotected place at midnight, belligerently telling them what a rough character he was, ordering them to move or not move as he saw fit, taking over the operation of their car, and threatening to kill or send all of them to the hospital if they did not do his bidding, as the State's evidence tended to show happened, was basis enough, we think, for the jury finding that defendant's purpose was to terrorize all of them.
But those were just the circumstances that existed before two of the three youngsters escaped defendant's control. The circumstances that defendant created thereafter, according to the State's evidence, make it even more likely that defendant's purpose was as charged. By then, so the State's evidence tends to show, defendant knew that the two younger boys were frightened sufficiently to jump from the car and dash wildly off into the night and that Stamey was sufficiently cowered to have done his bidding from the outset. Yet, instead of attempting to allay Stamey's fears, by telling him that he was just joking and joining Stamey in finding the other boys and demonstrating that no harm was intended, as one with an innocent purpose might be expected to do under such circumstances, the State's evidence shows that defendant thereafter dragged Stamey into the front seat of his car, drove away over his protests, slapped him in the face twice, traveled several miles into the country, and told Stamey that he was going to throw him off a bridge.
That defendant apparently had no weapon and may even have been incapable of fully carrying out his threats, particularly while the three boys were still together, did not require an acquittal, as the defendant contends. Since the crime defendant was convicted of did not involve a purpose to kill or maim, but a purpose to terrorize--[State v. McRae, 58 N.C.App. 225, 292 S.E.2d 778 (1982); State v. Jones, 36 N.C.App. 447, 244 S.E.2d 709 (1978) ]--that is the capacity that the jury had to consider, along with the way that that capacity was used. And as the record plainly shows, in concluding that the defendant did have the capacity to terrify these youngsters and used it for that purpose, the jury was not without justification.
Defendant also cites the following part of the Court's charge to the jury (and others like it when charging on the other indictments) as being an expression of opinion about a disputed fact, and thus violative of G.S....
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