State v. Brown, 121
| Decision Date | 15 July 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 121,121 |
| Citation | 300 N.C. 731,268 S.E.2d 201 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. James W. BROWN, Jr. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Atty. Gen. Rufus L. Edmisten by Asst. Atty. Gen. Elizabeth C. Bunting, Raleigh, for the State.
Joseph B. Chambliss, Clinton, for defendant.
Defendant presents four arguments. We find no error and affirm.
Defendant first asserts that the trial court improperly admitted the testimony of three doctors who opined that the decedent's injury was probably not caused by a fall down a flight of stairs. Such testimony, defendant argues, invaded the province of the jury and relieved the State of its burden of proof.
(2) the witness testifies only that an event could or might have caused an injury but does not testify to the conclusion that the event did in fact cause the injury, unless his expertise leads him to an unmistakable conclusion 1 and
(3) the witness does not express an opinion as to the defendant's guilt or innocence.
It is clear that the expert testimony the State presented at defendant's trial conformed to the State v. Wilkerson criteria.
First, all three medical experts were in a better position to have an opinion on the cause of deceased's injuries than the jury because of their medical training and their experience in observing and treating skull fractures. Dr. Keranen, the neurosurgeon who operated on the deceased, testified that he had been Chief Neurosurgeon at the Cape Fear Valley Hospital for ten years. Based on his observation of the extent and depth of the deceased's skull fracture, as he observed that fracture during surgery, he opined that "the child died from tremendous brain injury resulting from one blow of tremendous force to the right side of the head." In his opinion it was possible but remote that the injury was caused by a fall down a flight of wooden stairs. He based his opinion on the extent and severity of the child's injuries and the fact that she did not have the marks, bruises and abrasions associated with a fall down a flight of stairs.
Dr. Jerome Tift, pathologist at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in chapel Hill, performed the autopsy on the deceased. In his opinion the deceased's injuries were caused by blunt trauma to the right side of the head, injuries incompatible with a fall down a flight of stairs. He, too, based this opinion on the location and severity of the skull fracture. On cross-examination, however, Dr. Tift testified that it was not impossible that the injury could have been caused by a fall down a flight of stairs.
Dr. Page Hudson, Chief Medical Examiner for the State of North Carolina who was present at the autopsy of deceased, testified that deceased died from blunt force injury to the right side of her head. In his opinion the injury could not have been caused by a fall down a flight of stairs. He based this opinion on his past experience with various types of blunt force injuries to the skull, including injuries caused by stair falls. On cross-examination he stated that he did not believe a 23-pound, eighteen-month-old infant could develop the speed or momentum to receive an injury of this sort while falling down stairs. In his opinion, it would have taken upwards of 100 pounds per square inch of pressure to produce the deceased's injuries.
Each of these experts explained the medical inferences arising from the location, severity and extent of the focal point and the fracture lines of deceased's skull injury. That their opinions, to a person, drew inferences from medical facts which were inconsistent with defendant's explanation of the child's injury in no way undercuts the validity of their testimony. This Court has long allowed a medical expert to testify as to the nature of the instrument producing a particular injury when that expert's training and experience put him in a better position to draw medical inferences from facts than a layman jury. Cf. State v. Wilcox, 132 N.C. 1120, 44 S.E. 625 (1903) () See also State v. Monk, 291 N.C. 37, 229 S.E.2d 163 (1976); State v. Messer, 192 N.C. 80, 133 S.E. 404 (1926). The average layman, lacking the training and experience these experts had in treating and observing skull fractures, could not, unaided, have drawn the necessary medical inferences from the evidence presented to them. Clearly the evidence here met the traditional test compelling expert testimony: "(the) opinion required expert skill or knowledge in the medical or pathologic field about which a person of ordinary experience would not be capable of satisfactory conclusions, unaided by expert information...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Alston
...second degree is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice but without premeditation and deliberation. State v. Brown, 300 N.C. 731, 735, 268 S.E.2d 201, 204 (1980). A defendant is entitled to have a lesser-included offense submitted to the jury only when there is evidence to suppor......
-
State v. Strickland, 32PA82
...respect to premeditation and deliberation or malice, either under the facts or as raised by defendant's defenses. See State v. Brown, 300 N.C. 731, 268 S.E.2d 201 (1980); State v. Smith, 294 N.C. 365, 241 S.E.2d 674 (1978); State v. Jones, 291 N.C. 681, 231 S.E.2d 252 (1977); State v. Stewa......
-
State v. Barts
...manslaughter. This argument is without merit. Voluntary manslaughter is a lesser-included offense of murder. State v. Brown, 300 N.C. 731, 268 S.E.2d 201 (1980); State v. Montague, 298 N.C. 752, 259 S.E.2d 899 (1979). Involuntary manslaughter is also a lesser-included offense of murder. Sta......
-
State v. Gainey
...second degree is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice but without premeditation and deliberation. State v. Brown, 300 N.C. 731, 735, 268 S.E.2d 201, 204 (1980). A defendant is entitled to have a lesser-included offense submitted to the jury only when there is evidence to suppor......