State v. Fletcher, 117A96.

• Citation: 500 S.E.2d 668
• Decision Date: 09 July 1998
• Docket Number: No. 117A96.,117A96.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Andre Laguan FLETCHER.

500 S.E.2d 668

STATE of North Carolina v. Andre Laguan FLETCHER.

No. 117A96.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

July 9, 1998.

Michael F. Easley, Attorney General by David Roy Blackwell, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State.

Ann L. Hester, Charlotte, for defendant-appellant.

PARKER, Justice.

Defendant was indicted 7 September 1994 for first-degree murder, first-degree burglary, and robbery with a dangerous weapon. In January 1996 he was tried capitally and found guilty of first-degree murder upon theories of (i) malice, premeditation, and deliberation and (ii) felony murder. He was also found guilty of first-degree burglary and robbery with a dangerous weapon. Following a capital sentencing proceeding, the jury recommended a sentence of death for the murder, and the trial court entered judgment accordingly. For the first-degree burglary conviction, the trial court entered a consecutive sentence of imprisonment for fifty years, and for the robbery conviction, a consecutive sentence of forty years. We find no error meriting reversal of defendant's convictions. However, for the reasons stated herein, we conclude that defendant is entitled to a new capital sentencing proceeding.

On 17 August 1994 Georgia Ann Dayberry Hamrick ("victim"), eighty-three, was battered and knifed to death in her home in Spindale, Rutherford County, North Carolina. The State's evidence tended to show that defendant broke into the victim's home, beat her to find out where her valuables were, and then cut her throat. He took several rings, two of which he sold over the next couple of days for $250.00 and $60.00.

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, 17 August, during a summer rainstorm, defendant pulled out the top corner of the front storm door of the victim's house, breaking the pane of glass, and kicked in the wooden door to get inside. Defendant awakened the victim and, taking her into the various rooms of her house, battered her over the head to force her to give him money and jewelry. Blood drops stained the dining room table and floor, and blood spatter stained the dining room curtains and walls. The kitchen cabinets and walls also bore blood spatter, and a large amount of blood was pooled on the kitchen floor and table. The victim attempted to defend herself against the blows but was overpowered. Defendant then cut the victim's throat with a kitchen knife, exposing and lacerating the jugular vein, and left the house. The victim, still alive, was able to move down the hall to her bedroom, where she collapsed in a chair and died.

Searches of defendant's house, located about two hundred yards from the victim's house, produced from defendant's closet a pair of wet Fila tennis shoes whose soles were consistent with shoe prints, in both dust and blood, found in the victim's house and on her front door. A pawn ticket for $60.00, dated Thursday, 18 August, was found in the purse of defendant's girlfriend, Lisa Hill. The ticket was for a diamond and sapphire ring that the victim's family members testified had belonged to the victim. A second of the victim's rings was found behind the television in defendant's house. A search of defendant's car produced a small silver sewing kit that had belonged to the victim.

Upon interrogation, defendant revealed that in the early morning hours of 17 August, he remembered waking up in his house and sitting and looking at ten or twelve rings, not knowing where they came from. He also said that, at that time, he could see in his mind a white woman with a knife, as if he were having some type of vision. He told the police that he was scared because he did not know where the rings came from. He also told the police that on 18 August he and Hill sold one of the rings to a jewelry store and pawned another at a pawn shop. The police recovered these two rings, and the victim's family members testified that they had belonged to the victim. As for the rest of the rings, defendant said he put some of them in a trash can in a convenience store restroom and some more in a gutter behind a shop in town. The police recovered six rings from the restroom and three more from the gutter where defendant had indicated. Police confirmed that all the rings belonged to the victim.

Defendant presented evidence that despite his possession of the victim's rings there was not enough evidence linking defendant to the burglary and murder; he also presented evidence that the crimes were committed by a person who was seen around the time of the crimes by various eyewitnesses and whom the police never found. Defendant's clothes and shoes, seized from his home, did not produce any evidence of microscopic glass fragments expected to be left from the breaking of the glass in the front storm door, nor did the clothes or shoes test positive for human blood. None of the fingerprints and palm prints found in the victim's home matched defendant's. The Fila shoe prints found in the victim's home, while not inconsistent with a pair of Filas owned by defendant, did not reveal any of the characteristic nicks and cuts present on defendant's shoes.

A witness who lived in the victim's neighborhood testified that during the storm on the night of the murder she saw a man in a yellow raincoat walk by her house in the direction of the victim's house and that a short time later she heard some loud "pops" coming from that direction. She testified that the man's appearance was not consistent with that of defendant. Another witness testified that she saw a man in the neighborhood who was wearing a yellow raincoat, acting very suspiciously and driving a white Grand Am. She also testified that the man's face and general appearance were inconsistent with defendant's appearance.

In short, defendant's argument at trial was that no conclusive blood, hair, fiber, or glass evidence was found on defendant's clothes, in his car, or in his house; and no evidence was presented by the State regarding the identity of the man in the yellow raincoat.

PRETRIAL ISSUES

Defendant first contends that the trial court erroneously admitted into evidence defendant's statements produced as a result of custodial interrogation and the stolen property recovered as a result of information provided in those statements, in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution. Specifically, defendant asserts (i) that the Spindale Police stopped him without reasonable suspicion and arrested him without probable cause and (ii) that as a result of the illegal seizure and unlawful arrest, special agents of the State Bureau of Investigation ("SBI") obtained incriminating statements from him and statements that led to the recovery of stolen property. These statements and the property, defendant contends, were the fruits of an illegal seizure and should not have been admitted at trial. We disagree with defendant.

Evidence presented at the suppression hearing concerning the facts and circumstances surrounding defendant's detention and arrest are as follows. At 9:03 p.m. on 18 August 1994, Spindale Police Officer Chris Justice responded to a report of an automobile breaking and entering at the Uptown Beauty Salon located on Main Street in Spindale. When Officer Justice arrived there at 9:09 p.m., Ms. Patsy Hodge reported that she had been inside the salon having her hair done and that when she left she discovered that someone had broken out the right window of her vehicle. Ms. Derlene Watson, the proprietor of the beauty salon, told Officer Justice that while the salon staff had been working on Ms. Hodge's hair, Ms. Watson had seen a tall black male wearing a white t-shirt and dark colored pants walking back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the salon, "just acting suspicious to her." While at the salon, Officer Justice also spoke with Mr. Ray Sprouse, a local resident who told Justice he had seen a black male pick up a cement block from in front of a building and walk back toward the beauty salon and then, about a minute later, saw the same man run down an adjacent alleyway. After talking with Ms. Hodge, Ms. Watson, and Mr. Sprouse, Officer Justice broadcast a description to other officers on his walkie-talkie of a black male wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants who had fled on foot down the alley.

Within five minutes of Officer Justice's broadcast of the description, Spindale Police Officer Glen Harmon saw a person fitting the description in front of the Methodist Church on Main Street, roughly two blocks from the beauty salon, walking toward the rear of the church with a soft drink in his hand. Officer Harmon met the person, the defendant, at the back gate of the church and told him that he fit the description of a suspect in a vehicle breaking and entering that had just occurred uptown and that defendant "needed to just stay right there for a second" while he radioed Officer Justice to come. Officer Harmon then told defendant that he needed to search him for weapons and asked defendant if he was carrying any weapons. Defendant said he had no weapons and had nothing to do with a breaking and entering; then, beginning to get upset, defendant emptied his pockets and threw the contents on the ground, saying, "Search me, search me." Officer Harmon recognized defendant as a suspect in the Hamrick murder which had occurred the day before.

At this point at 9:15 p.m., Officer Justice arrived; he too recognized defendant as a suspect in the murder case. Officers Harmon and Justice put defendant in the back of a patrol car and radioed for another officer to pick up Ms. Watson from the beauty shop and bring her to the Methodist Church to see if she could identify defendant as the person she had observed outside her shop. It took "several minutes" for Ms. Watson to be brought to the Methodist Church. When she arrived the officers shined a flashlight on defendant in the back of the patrol car, and...