State v. Davis
| Citation | 386 S.E.2d 418,325 N.C. 607 |
| Decision Date | 07 December 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 745A85,745A85 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Eugene DAVIS, Jr. |
Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen. by William P. Hart, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.
Malcolm Ray Hunter, Jr., Appellate Defender by Gordon Widenhouse, Asst. Appellate Defender, Raleigh, for defendant-appellant.
Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree and common-law robbery. The jury recommended the death sentence for the murder, and the trial court sentenced accordingly. It imposed a sentence of ten years imprisonment for the robbery. Because we find prejudicial error in the sentencing phase on the murder charge, we remand for a new capital sentencing hearing. We find no error on the robbery charge.
The State's evidence tended to show that the victim, Vivian Whitaker, was murdered in her apartment on 1 March 1984. She was last seen alive as she entered her apartment at 4:00 or 4:30 p.m. Officer Karpovich of the Raleigh Police Department testified that at approximately 8:00 p.m. that evening he received a call to go to the Carriage House Apartments. He was met there by Betty Davis, defendant's mother, who escorted him to the victim's apartment. The door was unlocked and showed no signs of forcible entry. The victim lay face up in the middle of the living room floor. An emergency medical technician ascertained that the victim was dead, and Officer Karpovich secured the scene. The apartment was "in total disarray."
Investigator Parker of the Raleigh Police Department testified that the victim's apartment appeared disheveled, with some items lying on the floor and others turned over. Parker identified several items which were introduced into evidence and later identified as belonging to the victim: a radio, a green cigarette case and disposable cigarette lighter, and a gold ring with seven stones. The cigarette lighter and a pack of Virginia Slims cigarettes were taken from defendant after his arrest on 2 March 1984. Following his arrest, defendant was examined for bruises, scratches, or some other indication that he might have been in a fight. No marks were found on defendant's person.
Doris Brown testified that she lived in the Carriage House Apartments, a building for senior citizens and handicapped persons. She was acquainted with defendant because his mother lived in the building. On 1 March 1984 at 6:25 p.m., she saw defendant enter the elevator at the Carriage House Apartments. As she stood by the elevators reading the bulletin board, she saw the light over the elevator doors indicate that the elevator went to the fourth floor. The elevator returned to the ground floor without passengers. Defendant's mother lived in Apartment 411 at the time. The victim lived in Apartment 405. Gilbert Brown corroborated his wife's testimony.
Beatrice Randolph lived in Apartment 414 on 1 March 1984. She heard the door to the back stairway exit slam once at 6:30 Mrs. Artis Sears lived in Apartment 410, diagonally across the hall from Apartment 411, where defendant's mother, Mrs. Davis, lived. Mrs. Sears testified that she had excellent hearing. On the evening of 1 March 1984 she heard a man and a woman speaking rapidly and excitedly. She recognized the woman's voice as belonging to Mrs. Davis. After five or six minutes of conversation, she heard the back fire exit door slam; she then heard another door, closer to her apartment, open and close and the lock and chain go on the door. She estimated that this occurred between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m.
or 6:45 p.m. On cross-examination, she admitted that she was uncertain about the time the door slammed, and that she had told a police officer earlier that she heard the noise at around 8:30 p.m.
Mr. Franklin Cherry testified that on 1 March 1984 he was visiting his mother's apartment on the third floor of the Carriage House Apartments. At about 6:15 he heard some noise coming from the floor above. First he heard something vibrating or dragging across the floor. The noise lasted for two or three minutes. Then he heard a lady's voice saying something like, "Stop, stop, go on, go on," or "Stop, help."
Detective Munday of the Raleigh Police Department testified that he retrieved the victim's cigarette case from her apartment the day after the murder. The cigarette case was empty.
Deborah Sanders testified that defendant came to her mother's house after dark on the evening of the murder. He was trying to sell a radio and a ring. Ms. Sanders bought the ring for a dollar and her mother bought the radio. A few days later a police officer took the ring from her. The ring and radio were the same ones identified by Detective Parker. Mrs. Mary Primous testified she bought the radio from defendant for two dollars. After she learned defendant had been arrested, she called the police and gave them the radio.
Ronald Thorp, the victim's grandson, testified that he saw defendant at the time defendant sold the ring and radio to Mrs. Primous and Ms. Sanders. This was between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. Defendant was so nervous and shaky that when he wanted to use the telephone, someone else had to dial for him. After Thorp heard about the murder, he contacted the police. Thorp identified the cigarette case introduced into evidence as the one the victim always carried with her. The victim usually kept her apartment neat and clean; it was never disheveled with furniture turned over and items strewn about, as shown in the photographs introduced into evidence.
Agent Hallisey lifted latent fingerprints from various items in the victim's apartment, including a jewelry box, a coffee can lid sitting in the middle of a closet floor, a newspaper found underneath the victim's body, the telephone, and a green cigarette case. The latent fingerprints from the jewelry box and coffee can lid, and two fingerprints and three palm prints from the newspaper, were positively identified as defendant's.
Silas James Johnson testified that the victim had been his girlfriend for fifteen years. He visited her in her apartment every other night. He visited her the day before her murder, but the couple did not engage in sexual relations on that day.
Peggy Graham, the victim's daughter, testified that the cigarette lighter introduced into evidence was one that she bought for the victim. The victim usually smoked Virginia Slims cigarettes. Rufus Whitaker, Jr. testified that he bought the ring for the victim, his mother, that defendant later sold to Deborah Sanders. Another of the victim's sons, James Whitaker, also identified the ring and radio introduced into evidence as belonging to his mother.
Melba Thorpe, the victim's daughter, testified that the victim kept some money and jewelry in the coffee can found in a closet. Her mother used a cane to walk because she had suffered a stroke a few years earlier. The stroke left her with a limp. The victim was seventy years old.
Dr. Gordon Legrand, a pathologist, testified that he performed an autopsy on the victim's body. Several abrasions were located Ms. Jona Medlin testified that vaginal and rectal smears taken from the victim revealed the presence of spermatozoa. In Ms. Medlin's opinion as a forensic serologist, the spermatozoa had been deposited recently at the time of collection. 1
[325 N.C. 616] on either side of her neck. A linear abrasion and an area of bruising were located on her left jaw. Two puncture wounds surrounded by bruising were located at the back of the neck, probably caused by fingernails digging into the flesh. The victim's hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage were fractured and the muscles and soft tissue in the neck revealed evidence of trauma. In Dr. Legrand's opinion, these injuries to the neck area were caused by manual strangulation. Sixteen of the victim's ribs were broken and one of the ribs had punctured the left lung, resulting in bleeding into the lining of the lung. Chest muscles had hemorrhaged extensively. The left lobe of the liver was torn away from the rest of the liver, resulting in bleeding into the abdominal cavity. The esophageal opening in the diaphragm was enlarged and torn. All these injuries were caused by blunt trauma, probably three blows. The manual strangulation caused the victim's death, with the traumatic injuries contributing to the death. Judging from the atrophied state of the muscles, Dr. Legrand opined that the victim had been in a weakened condition at the time of her death.
Defendant did not offer evidence during the guilt phase of his trial, but moved to dismiss the charges of common-law robbery and first-degree murder at the close of the State's evidence. The trial court denied the motion. The jury found defendant guilty of common-law robbery and first-degree murder, basing the latter conviction on theories of both premeditation and deliberation and felony murder.
Following a capital sentencing hearing, the jury found the following aggravating circumstances: defendant was engaged in the commission of common-law robbery, the murder was committed for pecuniary gain, and the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.
The jury found twenty-five mitigating circumstances. Among these were the following statutory circumstances: defendant had no significant history of prior criminal activity, the murder was committed while defendant was under the influence of mental or emotional disturbance, defendant's capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform to the requirements of the law was impaired, and defendant's age at the time of the murder. The remaining nonstatutory mitigating circumstances pertained to the abuse and neglect defendant suffered during childhood, defend...
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