State v. Gainey

• Decision Date: 01 February 2002
• Docket Number: No. 531A00.,531A00.
• Citation: 558 S.E.2d 463
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. David GAINEY.

558 S.E.2d 463

STATE of North Carolina v. David GAINEY.

No. 531A00.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

February 1, 2002.

Roy Cooper, Attorney General, by Gail E. Dawson and Teresa H. Pell, Special Deputy Attorneys General, for the State.

Sue A. Berry, Lumberton, for defendant-appellant.

LAKE, Chief Justice.

Defendant was indicted on 13 April 1998 for one count of first-degree murder, one count of first-degree kidnapping, and one count of robbery with a dangerous weapon. The cases came on for a joint trial at the 28 June 1999 Criminal Session of Superior Court, Harnett County.

On 9 July 1999, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and following a capital sentencing proceeding, recommended a sentence of death for the first-degree murder. Defendant was sentenced to death and further received a sentence of 117 to 150 months' imprisonment for robbery with a dangerous weapon. The trial court also sentenced defendant to a consecutive term of 46 to 65 months' imprisonment for second-degree kidnapping, finding that the first-degree kidnapping was subsumed in the first-degree murder conviction. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that defendant's trial and sentences, including specifically his capital sentencing proceeding, were free of prejudicial error and that defendant's sentence of death is not disproportionate.

At trial, the State presented forensic evidence and various statements by defendant which were inconsistent in some respects, but in all of which defendant readily admitted active participation in the murder. The State's evidence tended to show that on 3 March 1998, defendant and Larry McDougald lured Dwayne Winfield McNeill, the victim, to Norrington Church on the pretext that he would receive headlight covers to put on his new black Mustang GT. Defendant and McDougald then took McNeill at gunpoint to an uninhabited trailer located near defendant's home. Defendant there shot the victim several times. Defendant put the victim's body, wrapped in a comforter, in the trunk of the victim's car and drove it down Tim Currin Road and then off the road and back into some woods. As he dragged the victim's body further into the woods, he heard the victim say, "[H]elp me." Defendant went back to the car, got his gun, and fired two fatal shots. Defendant left the victim's body about one hundred yards into the woods, covered with pine straw and a tree branch. Defendant immediately disposed of the comforter and gun he had used in the murder, and he cleaned the car.

Around 5 March 1998, Carolyn Campbell, defendant's neighbor, went to a trailer she used for storage. She found bullet holes, pools of blood, and signs that someone had broken into the trailer. Campbell notified the Harnett County Sheriff's Department. They searched the trailer and found six .22-caliber shell casings. The blood they found in the trailer matched the victim's.

The evidence further showed that on 10 March 1998, Dwight McNeill, the victim's father, received an anonymous phone call that the victim's car would be heading down Highway 87 in Spring Lake about 10:00 a.m. the next morning. Dwight McNeill informed the Harnett County Sheriff's Department, and officers waited the next morning for the Mustang. When the car passed, they immediately stopped the Mustang and found defendant driving the car. Defendant was wearing the victim's black leather jacket and had also taken possession of his wallet.

Defendant made several incriminating statements to investigators at the Harnett County Sheriff's Department. He later led investigators to the victim's body, and he showed them where he disposed of the gun and comforter. Investigators found the comforter but never located the gun. Blood found on the comforter matched the victim's.

On 13 March 1998, Marshall Gainey, defendant's father, contacted investigators and provided them with .22-caliber bullets that had not been fired. The bullets found in Campbell's trailer and those given to investigators by Marshall were all .22-caliber bullets manufactured by Federal.

An autopsy of the victim showed six gunshot wounds: to the forehead, the right eye, the left side of the upper lip, the left side of the chest, the right forearm, and the left upper back. The wounds to the right eye and the chest would have been fatal. The medical examiner also concluded that the bullet fragments removed from the victim's body were .22-caliber.

Defendant acknowledges the first six assignments of error presented in his brief as preservation issues, all of which we address as such later in this opinion. Further, we note that defendant has interspersed preservation issues throughout his brief, all of which are subsequently addressed herein, and that defendant has expressly abandoned a number of assignments of error. Accordingly, we will address defendant's remaining substantive assignments of error sequentially, without numerical reference.

In his next assignment of error, defendant asserts that the trial court unconstitutionally denied his motion to suppress statements to investigators. Defendant contends that his statements were not knowing, intelligent and voluntary and that they were made in response to impermissible statements by law enforcement officials that defendant would receive a benefit by giving the statements. Defendant did not testify, but he presented an affidavit in support of his motion. Defendant alleged that Lieutenant Billy Wade threatened and harassed him and told him that if he confessed, he could avoid the death penalty.

At the suppression hearing, the State presented the testimony of Special Agent Michael East of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and Lieutenant Billy Wade of the Harnett County Sheriff's Department. Lieutenant Wade testified that he told defendant, "[I]f he wanted to help himself that he could help himself by cooperating." Special Agent East testified that he was unaware of any force used against defendant and that he did not know of any promises or representations being made to defendant. The trial court found as a fact that "[a]t no time prior to or during defendant's interviews did law enforcement officers threaten, strike or coerce him, or make any promises or offers of reward to him." The trial court also concluded, as a matter of law, that all of the statements were made freely and voluntarily.

Defendant concedes that findings of fact made by a trial judge following a voir dire on the voluntariness of a confession are conclusive upon this Court if they are supported by competent evidence. State v. Rook, 304 N.C. 201, 212, 283 S.E.2d 732, 740 (1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1038, 102 S.Ct. 1741, 72 L.Ed.2d 155 (1982). Conclusions of law that are correct in light of the findings of fact are also binding on appeal. State v. Howell, 343 N.C. 229, 239, 470 S.E.2d 38, 43 (1996).

The voluntariness of a confession is determined by the "totality of the circumstances." State v. Corley, 310 N.C. 40, 47, 311 S.E.2d 540, 545 (1984). The proper determination is whether the confession at issue was the product of "improperly induced hope or fear." Id. at 48, 311 S.E.2d at 545. This Court has held that an improper inducement must promise relief from the criminal charge to which the confession relates, and not merely provide the defendant with a collateral advantage. State v. Pruitt, 286 N.C. 442, 458, 212 S.E.2d 92, 102 (1975).

Lieutenant Wade testified that he never made any promises to defendant concerning the disposition of his case, and Special Agent East also testified that he never heard Lieutenant Wade make any promises to defendant.

Accordingly, the trial court's finding of fact that no promises or offer of reward were made to defendant is supported by competent evidence in the record. The trial court's conclusion of law that the statement was voluntary is supported by the finding of fact and the law. Therefore, the trial court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress his statements. This assignment of error is overruled.

Defendant's next assignment of error involves the trial court's sustaining the State's objections to three questions posed during defendant's rehabilitation of prospective juror Barbara Jackson Wheeler. Defendant further asserts that the trial court improperly excused Wheeler over his objection.

When questioned by the prosecutor, Wheeler initially admitted she had "mixed emotions" and was not sure if she could sentence someone to death. She subsequently stated three times that she could never return a death verdict. The prosecutor challenged Wheeler for cause after she stated she could never return a death verdict. The trial court allowed defense counsel the opportunity to question Wheeler further. Defense counsel initially asked Wheeler three general questions as to whether she could follow the law of North Carolina, and counsel did not address the issue as to whether she could impose the death penalty. Finally, defense counsel asked Wheeler: "[U]nder any circumstances could you render a verdict that meant the death penalty?" She replied, "No, sir."

The standard this Court applies when determining when a prospective juror can be excluded for cause because of his or her views on capital punishment is whether the juror's views would " `prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.'" Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 424, 105 S.Ct. 844, 852, 83 L.Ed.2d 841, 851-52 (1985) (quoting Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38, 45, 100 S.Ct. 2521, 2526, 65 L.Ed.2d 581, 589 (1980)). Prospective jurors with reservations about imposing the death penalty must be able to " `state clearly that they are willing to temporarily set aside their own beliefs in deference to the rule of law.' " State v. Brogden, 334 N.C. 39, 43, 430 S.E.2d 905, 907-08 (1993) (quoting Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U.S. 162, 176, 106 S.Ct. 1758, 1766, 90 L.Ed.2d 137, 149-50 (1986)). The granting of a challenge for cause...