State v. Green

• Decision Date: 06 June 1978
• Docket Number: No. 6,6
• Citation: 244 S.E.2d 369,295 N.C. 244
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Jimmy Eugene GREEN.

Page 369

244 S.E.2d 369

295 N.C. 244

STATE of North Carolina v. Jimmy Eugene GREEN.

No. 6.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

June 6, 1978.

Rufus L. Edmisten, Atty. Gen. by John R. Wallace, Associate Atty., Raleigh, for the State.

Jim R. Funderburk, Public Defender, Gastonia, for defendant-appellant.

BRANCH, Justice.

The sole question presented by this appeal is whether the trial court erred by denying defendant's motion to dismiss the charges against him.

When a defendant moves for judgment as of nonsuit or dismissal in a criminal action, the trial judge must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, take it as true and give the State the benefit of every reasonable inference to be drawn therefrom. If there is evidence, whether direct, circumstantial or both, from which a jury could find that the offense charged had been committed and that the defendant committed it, the motion for judgment as of nonsuit or dismissal should be overruled. State v. McNeil, 280 N.C. 159, 185 S.E.2d 156 (1971); State v. Goines, 273 N.C. 509, 160 S.E.2d 469 (1968).

In instant case, the State presented evidence which tends to show that on 4 October 1976 the body of Rosemary Knauer was found in the woods near the Kings Mountain Inn. Police officers observed multiple stab wounds on the body and observed that the decedent's clothing was in general disarray and that the rear seam of her pants was split. Medical examination of the body revealed the presence of spermatozoa in the vagina. In the opinion of the medical examiner, death was due to multiple stab wounds. There was evidence that defendant was employed in the area where the victim worked and that on the morning after the crime was committed, he stated that he had engaged in sexual intercourse on the preceding night. Further, the State introduced defendant's confessions to the rape and murder of Rosemary Knauer.

Taken in the light most favorable to the State, this evidence gives rise to reasonable inferences that Rosemary Knauer was forcibly raped and murdered and that defendant was the perpetrator of these crimes.

Admittedly, defendant's confessions were the only evidence which clearly pointed to him as the perpetrator of the crimes. The rule in this jurisdiction is that a conviction cannot be sustained upon a naked extra-judicial confession. There must be independent proof, either direct or circumstantial, of the corpus delicti in order for the conviction to be sustained. This does not mean that the evidence tending to establish the corpus delicti must also identify the accused as the one who committed the crime. State v. Whittemore, 255 N.C 583, 122 S.E.2d 396 (1961); State v. Cope, 240 N.C. 244, 81 S.E.2d 773 (1954). See also, State v. Jenerett, 281 N.C. 81, 187 S.E.2d 735 (1972). A confession will be sufficient to carry the case to the jury when the State offers such extrinsic corroborative evidence as will, when taken in connection with the confession, establish that the crime was committed and that the accused was the perpetrator of the crime. State v. Thompson, 287 N.C. 303, 214 S.E.2d 742 (1975).

Here the State established the corpus delicti without reliance upon defendant's confessions, and without further showing, it would appear that the trial judge correctly denied defendant's motion to dismiss. Defendant nevertheless contends that his mental condition and proclivity for telling untruths in order to gain attention and favor make his confessions so unworthy of belief as to be without probative value. He argues that since these inherently unreliable confessions are the only evidence indicating that he was the perpetrator of the rape and murder of Rosemary Knauer, his motion for nonsuit should have been granted. In support of his position, defendant relies upon State v. Miller, 270 N.C. 726, 154 S.E.2d 902 (1967).

In Miller, the only evidence identifying the defendant as the person who committed the crime was the testimony of a witness who was never closer than 286 feet from the scene of the crime. The witness had never seen the defendant before and the only opportunity the witness had to observe the face of the perpetrator of the crime was when the...