State v. Garcia

• Decision Date: 25 June 2004
• Docket Number: No. 504A01.,504A01.
• Citation: State v. Garcia, 358 N.C. 382, 597 S.E.2d 724 (N.C. 2004)
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Fernando Louis GARCIA, III.

597 S.E.2d 724

358 N.C. 382

STATE of North Carolina v. Fernando Louis GARCIA, III.

No. 504A01.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

June 25, 2004.

Roy Cooper, Attorney General, by William P. Hart, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State.

Rudolf Maher Widenhouse & Fialko, by M. Gordon Widenhouse, Jr., Chapel Hill, for defendant-appellant.

BRADY, Justice.

Juliann Bolt was murdered in the ladies' room of her apartment complex clubhouse on 21 June 2000. On 10 July 2000, defendant Fernando Louis Garcia, III¹ was indicted for the first-degree murder of Bolt. Defendant was tried capitally and was found guilty of first-degree murder under the felony murder rule, with attempted rape as the underlying felony. Following a capital sentencing proceeding, the jury recommended that defendant be sentenced to death, and the trial court entered judgment in accordance with that recommendation. Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-27(a), and this Court heard oral argument in defendant's case on 13 October 2003. After consideration of the assignments of error raised by defendant on appeal and a thorough review of the transcript, the record on appeal, the briefs, and oral arguments, we find no error meriting reversal of defendant's capital conviction or death sentence.

At trial, the State's evidence tended to show that both defendant and Bolt resided at Cameron Lakes Apartments in Raleigh, North Carolina. Shortly after 8:00 p.m. on 21 June 2000, Bolt went to the apartment clubhouse intending to exercise in the workout area. The workout room had glass walls, doors, and windows and adjoined a hallway that led to the men's and ladies' restrooms. Defendant, who did not know Bolt, entered the workout area. He escorted Bolt from the room, across the hallway, and into the ladies' restroom at gunpoint. Once inside, defendant forced Bolt to remove her gym shorts and underwear. Defendant struck Bolt with his revolver. He made her lie face down on the restroom floor and pinned her in that position by placing his knee on her back. At some point, Bolt tried to kick at defendant's groin. Defendant continued beating Bolt with the revolver, cracking open her skull and dislodging the right frontal lobe of her brain. When defendant left the restroom, Bolt was bloodied, lying on the restroom floor, and making gurgling sounds.

Defendant then went to the men's restroom where he discarded his underwear, which had become bloody. He discarded his T-shirt in a dumpster outside the clubhouse and returned to his apartment to wash his tennis shoes and sweat pants. At the apartment, defendant also cleaned the revolver with alcohol and hid it under his bed.

Defendant was convicted primarily on the basis of his own confession and physical evidence, including blood evidence, DNA evidence, shoe prints, fingerprints, his bloody clothing, fresh scratches on his face, knee, back, and nose, and the murder weapon (which had been recovered by police), as well as the testimony of crime scene investigators, a blood spatter analyst, and a pathologist. During the guilt-innocence phase of his trial, defendant called one witness, Dr. Andrew Paul Mason, a toxicologist who testified that forty hours after the murder defendant's blood contained trace amounts of cocaine. Dr. Mason also expressed his expert opinion that, at the time of the murder, defendant had recently used and was under the influence of cocaine. Dr. Mason further testified that cocaine use facilitates violent behavior.

Additional relevant facts will be presented when necessary to resolve specific assignments of error raised by defendant.

PRE-TRIAL ISSUES

Defendant contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss the first-degree murder charge against him and, in the alternative, by denying his motion for a bill of particulars. Defendant argues that he lacked notice as to which underlying felony or felonies supported the felony murder count because he was charged in a short-form indictment. Defendant contends that the absence of such notice is a jurisdictional defect requiring dismissal of his case. Defendant further contends that if the indictment is constitutional, it is vague and should have been supplemented by a bill of particulars which sets forth the felonies upon which the State intended to rely at trial. We disagree.

We note at the outset that information obtained through a bill of particulars cannot remedy a constitutionally infirm indictment. State v. Greer, 238 N.C. 325, 331, 77 S.E.2d 917, 922 (1953); State v. Gibbs, 234 N.C. 259, 261, 66 S.E.2d 883, 885 (1951). However, we do not find defendant's indictment to be defective. Short-form indictments for homicide are authorized by N.C.G.S. § 15-144, which states:

In indictments for murder and manslaughter, it is not necessary to allege matter not required to be proved on the trial; but in the body of the indictment, after naming the person accused, and the county of his residence, the date of the offense, the averment "with force and arms," and the county of the alleged commission of the offense, as is now usual, it is sufficient in describing murder to allege that the accused person feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought, did kill and murder (naming the person killed), and concluding as is now required by law ... and any bill of indictment containing the averments and allegations herein named shall be good and sufficient in law....

N.C.G.S § 15-144 (2003). It is well settled that short-form indictments authorized by section 15-144 meet state and federal constitutional requirements. See State v. Hunt, 357 N.C. 257, 582 S.E.2d 593,cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 44, 156 L.Ed.2d 702 (2003); see also State v. Mitchell, 353 N.C. 309, 328-29, 543 S.E.2d 830, 842,cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1000, 122 S.Ct. 475, 151 L.Ed.2d 389 (2001); State v. Davis, 353 N.C. 1, 44-45, 539 S.E.2d 243, 271 (2000),cert. denied, 534 U.S. 839, 122 S.Ct. 95, 151 L.Ed.2d 55 (2001); State v. Braxton, 352 N.C. 158, 173-75, 531 S.E.2d 428, 436-38 (2000),cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1130, 121 S.Ct. 890, 148 L.Ed.2d 797 (2001); State v. Wallace, 351 N.C. 481, 504-08, 528 S.E.2d 326, 341-43,cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1018, 121 S.Ct. 581, 148 L.Ed.2d 498 (2000). More specifically, this Court has consistently held that murder indictments that comply with N.C.G.S. § 15-144 are sufficient to charge first-degree murder on the basis of any theory set forth in N.C.G.S. § 14-17. Braxton, 352 N.C. at 174,531 S.E.2d at 437; State v. May, 292 N.C. 644, 661, 235 S.E.2d 178, 189,cert. denied, 434 U.S. 928, 98 S.Ct. 414, 54 L.Ed.2d 288 (1977). N.C.G.S. § 14-17 states that "[a] murder ... which shall be committed in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of any arson, rape or a sex offense, robbery, kidnapping, burglary, or other felony committed or attempted with the use of a deadly weapon shall be deemed to be murder in the first degree." N.C.G.S. § 14-17 (2003) (emphasis added). Therefore, a short-form indictment is sufficient to charge first-degree murder on the basis of felony murder committed during an attempted rape. Because defendant was convicted of felony murder predicated upon attempted rape, and because defendant was charged in a short-form indictment in compliance with N.C.G.S. § 15-144, we find the indictment to be constitutionally sufficient. For these reasons, the trial court correctly denied defendant's motion to dismiss.

Concerning defendant's motion for a bill of particulars, a defendant may request a bill of particulars "to supplement the facts contained in the indictment." State v. Randolph, 312 N.C. 198, 210, 321 S.E.2d 864, 872 (1984). The purpose of a bill of particulars is to " inform [the] defendant of specific occurrences intended to be investigated at trial" and "to limit the course of the evidence to [that] particular scope of inquiry." State v. Young, 312 N.C. 669, 676, 325 S.E.2d 181, 186 (1985). To those ends, N.C.G.S. § 15A-925(b) requires that "[a] motion for a bill of particulars must request and specify items of factual information desired by the defendant which pertain to the charge and which are not recited in the pleading." N.C.G.S. § 15A-925(b) (2003) (emphasis added). However, when first-degree murder is charged, the State is not required to elect between theories of prosecution prior to trial. State v. Wingard, 317 N.C. 590, 594, 346 S.E.2d 638, 641 (1986). Moreover, when the factual basis for prosecution is sufficiently pled, "a defendant must be prepared to defend against any and all legal theories which [the] facts may support." State v. Holden, 321 N.C. 125, 135, 362 S.E.2d 513, 522 (1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1061, 108 S.Ct. 2835, 100 L.Ed.2d 935 (1988).

The grand jury indictment in this case charged defendant with "FIRST DEGREE MURDER ... in violation of G.S. § 14-17." Under section 14-17, the State may prove first-degree murder by presenting evidence to support one of several theories, including "deliberate[] and premeditated killing" and killing "committed in the perpetration or attempted perpetration" of an enumerated felony. N.C.G.S. § 14-17. By requesting that the State identify which predicate felony it intended to prove at trial, defendant essentially sought disclosure of the State's legal theory. At the pre-trial hearing, defense counsel explained, "[W]e asked what is the state's theory, whether it be premeditation, deliberation, or felony murder, and if it is felony murder, what are the felonies upon which they rely?" (emphasis added). Such legal theories of the prosecution are not "factual information" within the meaning of N.C.G.S. § 15A-925. Cf. State v. Brown, 306 N.C. 151, 184, 293 S.E.2d 569, 590 (noting that "G.S. 15A-925 does not authorize a trial court to order the State to disclose its aggravating circumstances prior to trial" because "aggravating circumstances are not `factual information' within the meaning of G.S. 15A-925"), cert. denied, ...