State v. Haywood

• Decision Date: 28 November 1978
• Docket Number: No. 83,83
• Citation: 295 N.C. 709,249 S.E.2d 429
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Paul Austin HAYWOOD, John William Brown, James Lewis Watkins and Ronald Eugene Covington.

Page 429

249 S.E.2d 429

295 N.C. 709

STATE of North Carolina v. Paul Austin HAYWOOD, John William Brown, James Lewis Watkins and Ronald Eugene Covington.

No. 83.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Nov. 28, 1978.

Rufus L. Edmisten, Atty. Gen., and George J. Oliver, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.

E. C. Thompson, III, Warsaw, Atty., for John William Brown and Ronald Eugene Covington, defendants-appellants.

Russell J. Lanier, Jr., Kenansville, for Paul Austin Haywood and James Lewis Watkins, defendants-appellants.

SHARP, Chief Justice.

We examine first defendants' assignment of error No. 14, that the trial court erred in denying their respective motions for judgments as of nonsuit, made at the close of all the evidence. G.S. 15-173 (1975). We consider this assignment under the established rule that upon a motion to nonsuit the trial court must view 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 from it. State v. Goines, 273 N.C. 509, 160 S.E.2d 469 (1968).

It is immediately apparent from an examination of the facts that the court properly overruled the motion as to defendants Watkins and Brown. Defendant Brown was the man whom Jackson identified in court as the one beating him in the face with the "long type weapon." Defendant Watkins was the man wearing the "yellow tank top," whom Mrs. Gaddy saw outside Jackson's grocery when she went there before taking her son to school. After delivering him she drove back by the store where she again saw Watkins as he walked away from Jackson lying in the door crying for help. Furthermore, Watkins owned the green and black 1970 Dodge Monaco with the D. C. license which several witnesses saw at the grocery before and after Jackson was shot. It was in this car that the four defendants were traveling when they were arrested less than an hour after the robbery and shooting, and in which Jackson's .38 pistol was found.

Defendants Haywood and Covington, however, contend that the evidence admitted at the trial fails to place either of them in the store or to show that they were acting in concert with Brown and Watkins. Haywood correctly asserts that his alleged confession to Lieutenant Goodwin, having been ruled incompetent ("because the constable blundered") "in no way incriminates him" legally. Haywood and Covington rely upon State v. Aycoth and Shadrick, 272 N.C. 48, 157 S.E.2d 655 (1967). As to them, they maintain that case is indistinguishable from this one. They argue, therefore, that their presence with Brown and Watkins immediately before and after the assault and robbery is insufficient to establish their complicity in these crimes.

The principle for which Aycoth is so often cited is firmly established law: "Mere presence at the scene of a crime does not make one guilty as a principal or as an aider and abettor or as an accessory before the fact. State v. Aycoth, 272 N.C. 48, 157 S.E.2d 655." State v. Eakins, 292 N.C. 445, 450, 233 S.E.2d 387, 390 (1977). In Aycoth, the two defendants were jointly indicted and convicted for the armed robbery of Mrs. Keith Stevenson, who was in charge of Outen's Grocery. The State's evidence tended to show: The defendant Shadrick was a passenger in the defendant Aycoth's car when he stopped at Outen's and went into the store, leaving Shadrick in the car. The robbery occurred inside the store, where Aycoth remained no more than two or three minutes. There was no evidence that Shadrick ever moved from where he was sitting on the right side of the front seat of the car. Mrs. Stevenson testified she could see Shadrick, and he could have seen her through the plate glass window, but he never did look around. There was no evidence that Shadrick did observe what was taking place inside the store or that he had a weapon of any kind. After robbing Mrs. Stevenson, Aycoth concealed his pistol before he left the store and returned to the car. When the defendants were arrested several hours later there was no evidence that Shadrick shared in the hundred dollars which Aycoth took from Mrs. Stevenson beyond the fact that he had fifteen dollars and some change on him. Weapons were found under the seat of Aycoth's car, but there was no evidence that Shadrick knew they were there.

In reversing Shadrick's conviction this Court said: "Although there are circumstances which point the finger of suspicion towards Shadrick, we are constrained to hold that the evidence is insufficient to warrant a verdict that he is guilty of the alleged armed robbery as an aider and abettor of Aycoth." 272 N.C. at 51, 157 S.E.2d at 657-8. See also State v. Swaney, 277 N.C. 602, 612-13, 178 S.E.2d 399, 405-6 (1970), Appeal dismissed, 402 U.S. 1006, 91 S.Ct. 2199, 29 L.Ed.2d 428 (1971).

In the instant case, however, the evidence is not as sparse as it was in Aycoth; it does more than point the finger of suspicion toward Haywood and Covington. Competent evidence sustains findings (1) that these two defendants were present, either in or sufficiently close to Jackson's grocery, to aid the perpetrators in the commission of the robbery should their assistance become necessary and (2) that their intent to do so was communicated to the actual perpetrators. "The communication or intent to aid, if needed, does not have to be shown by express words of the defendant but may be inferred from his actions and from his relation to the actual perpetrators." State v. Sanders, 288 N.C. 285, 291, 218 S.E.2d 352, 357 (1975), Cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1091, 96 S.Ct. 886, 47 L.Ed.2d 102 (1976). "(W)hen the bystander is a friend of the perpetrator and knows that his presence will be regarded by the perpetrator as an encouragement and protection, presence alone may be regarded as an encouragement, and in contemplation of law this is aiding and abetting." State v. Holland, 234 N.C. 354, 358, 67 S.E.2d 272, 275 (1951). See State v. Rankin, 284 N.C. 219, 223, 200 S.E.2d 182, 185 (1973) and cases cited therein.

It is a fair inference from the State's evidence that the four men and one woman who occupied the green Dodge on 7 September 1976 were "friends" who had left Washington, D. C. together on a joint venture to the south. Washington was the residence of Watkins, the owner of the car, and his wife, Linda. All occupants had clothes in the trunk of the car, and they arrived together at the Red & White before Jackson opened the store.

According to all the testimony at least three of the defendants perhaps four went into the store. Jackson testified that while two were beating on him he heard a third person running down the aisle. Mr. Gautier, who heard the shooting and Mr. Jackson's cries for help, testified that he saw two or three people come out of the store and run to the Dodge. "When it would not crank," they jumped out and ran back around the building. The driver, however, stayed with the car, got it started, drove around the back and got the others. He then drove toward Highway 701. Mrs. Gaddy also saw Watkins drive around behind the store and pick up "three more." As the car stopped for the light at Highway 701, James Johnson could see only the driver. The other four occupants were obviously all crouched in the seat or floorboard.

When Patrolman Mason spotted a two-toned Dodge with a D.C. license on Highway 701 he could see only a man and a woman in the front seat. After he had stopped the car and had seen a knee move in the back, he discovered Haywood, Brown, and Covington lying down in the seat an unusual posture of choice for innocent persons unaware of any reason why officers of the law would be interested in them. When the occupants of the back seat had been removed, Mason observed in plain view on the floorboard four deadly weapons: a hoe handle, two Harrington-Richardson pistols (Exhibit 2-a, of .32 caliber; Exhibit 2-b, of .22 caliber), and a .38 caliber pistol, later identified as the pistol which had been taken from Mr. Jackson. The .32 caliber pistol had been used in the robbery, for a bullet fired from it was found in the aisle. Indubitably, all the occupants of the Watkins vehicle knew of the presence of the two Harrington-Richardson pistols and the hoe handle and that they were to be used in the robbery of the Red & White grocery.

We conclude that this evidence is sufficient to support a finding that the four defendants were "friends" acting in concert, that each was aiding and abetting the others in the robbery, and that all were principals in the crimes charged. We hold, therefore, that the motion for nonsuit was properly overruled.

We next consider assignment of error No. 5 in which defendants Watkins, Brown and Covington challenge the trial judge's ruling excluding an alleged declaration against penal interest made by their codefendant Haywood.

On cross-examination defendants Watkins, Brown, and Covington sought to elicit from Lieutenant Goodwin the oral statements, and the contents of a written statement, which defendant Haywood had given the police with reference to his involvement in the robbery and shooting of Jackson. The trial judge sustained defendant Haywood's objection to this evidence, and that ruling is the basis of assignment of error No. 5.

Haywood's statement was that he had traveled from Washington, D. C. to Clinton with the other defendants; that, after arriving there, they stopped at Jackson's Red & White and he went in to rob the store; that Jackson put up such a fight he shot him and ran out.

The district attorney, conscious of the fact that the officers had obtained Haywood's confession without having warned him of his constitutional right to remain silent, did not offer his incriminating statement in evidence. The State thus avoided a confrontation with Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and the cases having been consolidated, perhaps a confrontation with Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88...