State v. Bray, 501A86

• Decision Date: 09 March 1988
• Docket Number: No. 501A86,501A86
• Citation: 321 N.C. 663,365 S.E.2d 571
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. William Richard BRAY.

Page 571

365 S.E.2d 571

321 N.C. 663

STATE of North Carolina v. William Richard BRAY.

No. 501A86.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

March 9, 1988.

Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen. by Isaac T. Avery, III, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., and Linda Anne Morris, Associate Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.

Malcolm Ray Hunter, Jr., Appellate Defender by Daniel R. Pollitt, Asst. Appellate Defender, Raleigh, for defendant-appellant.

WHICHARD, Justice.

Defendant was convicted of the first degree murder of Bobby Lee Coggins, for which he received a life sentence. He was also convicted of armed robbery, for which he received a forty year sentence (consecutive), discharging a firearm into occupied property, for which he received a ten year sentence (consecutive), second degree burglary, for which he received a forty year sentence (consecutive), and larceny of a firearm, for which he received a three year sentence (consecutive). We find no error.

The State's evidence, in pertinent summary, showed the following:

On 26 August 1985, defendant and Jimmy Dean Rios escaped from the Franklin County Jail in Ozark, Arkansas, by attacking the jailer, hitting him on the head with a metal pipe, and locking him in a cell. On 29 August, William Harriman, who lived seventeen miles from the jail, reported that his 1976 orange and white truck had been stolen. A window in his trailer had been broken; the truck keys and a .22 caliber rifle were missing from the trailer.

David Lavender, a South Carolina resident, testified that while he was in Tennessee in early September 1985, he noticed that the license plate (South Carolina "ULS 161") on his van was missing.

Jerry Richman testified that defendant and Rios lived with him in Asheville between 5 and 14 September 1985, and that they had a Chevrolet pickup truck with South Carolina license plate ULS 161. They left on the morning of 14 September.

Karen Haggar testified that she met defendant and Rios at a bar in Asheville in September 1985. Rios was driving a pickup truck and had an automatic handgun. Defendant and Rios drove to her house at noon on 14 September.

On 14 September 1985, Bobby Lee Coggins, a member of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, was on duty in Madison County. Frank Huggins and Joe Rathbone were working at the Asheville Division Highway Patrol communications headquarters at that time. Coggins called headquarters around 4:25 p.m. and asked for a driver's license information check and a vehicle identification check on an orange and white pickup truck with a South Carolina tag. After running computer checks, Rathbone informed Coggins that the tag was registered to a van owned by a resident of South Carolina, that the truck had been stolen in Arkansas by escaped prisoners, and that the prisoners were considered armed. Coggins stated that everything was "10-4" or okay. When Rathbone and Huggins attempted to contact Coggins at 4:43 p.m., they could not get an answer.

Johnny Norton, Joey Moore, and Howard Holder testified that they were driving on Highway 209 sometime after 4:00 p.m. when they saw Coggins' patrol car pulled over at the Vann Cliff Overlook behind an orange and cream-colored truck. Coggins was at the truck with defendant and another man.

Billy Cantrell testified that he had stopped at the overlook at about 4:00 p.m. and had seen a patrol car and a Chevrolet pickup truck there. He drove up the road and after a few minutes drove back by. At that time, he saw that one man was squatting outside the passenger side of the patrol car, while the trooper and Rios were sitting inside the car.

Tom Fuhr and Homer Wilkins testified that they stopped at the overlook at about 4:25 to 4:30 p.m. They saw a pickup truck and a Highway Patrol car there. The trooper was in his car and appeared to be writing. Two other men were there; one was seated in the passenger's seat of the patrol car and the other was bending over outside the truck, looking under the seat, on the floor board, or behind the seat of the pickup truck. Wilkins asked the second man, "What's the cop unhappy about?" The man mumbled about there being something wrong with the driver's license, then leaned into the cab of the truck to look under the seat. Trooper Coggins told Fuhr that he was doing business there and requested that the men leave the area. They got in their car and drove south on Highway 209. After they had been driving for about three or four minutes, the pickup truck passed them, going very fast, and disappeared around a curve.

Around 4:30 to 4:45, Lee Phillips drove past Coggins' patrol car, then returned to the overlook after some of his passengers said that they had seen blood on the patrolman. The engine of the patrol car was running, the blue lights were on, and the doors were closed. The window on the driver's side was rolled all the way down and the window on the passenger's side was rolled about halfway down. Phillips testified that there was blood coming out of Coggins' ear, and that he had a clipboard in his hand with some writing on it, including a tag number and the word "Arkansas." Coggins' gun holster was unsnapped and his gun was missing. Phillips called the Asheville Highway Patrol on the patrol car's radio and told them that "a cop had been shot" outside Hot Springs. Another man who had stopped at the scene gave the location to the people in Asheville and told them that Coggins was dead.

At about 6:30 p.m., the Madison County sheriff discovered the pickup truck, with South Carolina tag ULS 161, stuck in a bank 13.5 miles from Vann Cliff Overlook.

On 16 September 1985, around dusk, Rachel Gillespie, a 76 year-old woman who lived alone on a farm off Highway 209, left home to spend the night with a relative. She locked the doors; the windows were closed. When she returned to her house around 7:30 the next morning, she found that her .25-20 rifle was missing, as well as a quilt, a blanket, some clothes, a suitcase, a flashlight, and some food. A stick that had held a window down was broken, and a hole had been torn through plastic on the inside of the window.

At about 3:00 p.m. on 17 September, defendant and Rios were arrested. Before they were captured, Rios dropped Coggins' .357 Magnum revolver and kicked it away. When searched, defendant was found to have a .25 caliber automatic pistol.

State Medical Examiner Page Hudson testified that he performed an autopsy on Trooper Coggins. He found that Coggins had three gunshot wounds on the right side of his head: one on the forehead, one near the ear, and one near the mouth. Dr. Hudson testified that a .25 caliber bullet caused the wound on the forehead; it entered the head at a downward angle, grazed the brain, then lodged in bone under the brain. Although this wound was very serious, it was "probably not fatal." The wound near the ear was caused by the bullet of a .357 Magnum revolver. The bullet had gone through much of the brain, slightly back and upward, then lodged in the skull. In Dr. Hudson's opinion, this was the most severe wound; it would have been immediately fatal. The wound near the mouth was caused by a .25 caliber bullet which went into the floor of the mouth, forward and somewhat downward. In Dr. Hudson's opinion, that wound would not have been fatal. Dr. Hudson also testified that in his opinion the wounds were "generally contemporaneous." He also testified that the muzzles of the guns were "within approximately a couple of feet from the face of Mr. Coggins" when they were fired. However, the mouth wound was probably caused by a shot from a greater distance, by a foot or so, than the forehead wound.

Fingerprints were taken from the patrol car and from the pickup truck. Rios' fingerprints were found on the front bumper of the truck and on the outside of the patrol car at the handle of the front passenger door. Defendant's fingerprints were found around the truck and on the exterior of the front passenger door of the patrol car.

At trial, an SBI agent testified that the .25 caliber pistol found on defendant fired the two .25 caliber bullets that hit Trooper Coggins and the two .25 caliber spent shells found in the patrol car. The agent also testified that the bullet that caused Coggins' ear wound had been fired from Coggins' .357 Magnum revolver, the gun that Rios had dropped before he was arrested.

Defendant's statement to police, made on 17 September 1985, was read into evidence at trial. In that statement, defendant said that he and Rios had arrived in Asheville in "the first part of September." They met Jerry Richman and told him that their money had been stolen. He let them stay at his apartment until the morning of the murder. On 13 September 1985, Rios borrowed a .25 caliber automatic pistol from Richman's roommate's girlfriend. On 14 September, Rios wanted to ride to Hot Springs to take some pictures. He and defendant left at about 2:30 p.m. The statement continued:

Then we started up to Hot Springs and had some beer with us. On toward Hot Springs the trooper got behind us and followed us for about four or five miles. When he stopped us Jimmy threw me the automatic and said, "Here[,] I think I'm going to get searched." I shoved it under my seat. The Trooper came up to the door and asked Jimmy to come back to his car. I got out and just stood there smoking cigarettes while the Trooper had Jimmy walk a line and all that stuff to see if he was drunk. He then made Jimmy pour our beer out over the rail. The Trooper then asked Jimmy to get into his car, which he did. And I got back into the truck. The Trooper then walked up to the driver's side of the truck and looked under the seat. He then walked around ... to come to my side and I put the gun in my right Levi jacket pocket.

At that point Jimmy asked me to come back to the Patrol car and I did. The Trooper then came back to his car and started talking on his radio. I then heard on the radio a code 10-30 something on the radio. The radio then said...