State v. Hunt, 507A85

• Decision Date: 04 May 1989
• Docket Number: No. 507A85,507A85
• Citation: 378 S.E.2d 754,324 N.C. 343
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Darryl Eugene HUNT.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Page 754

378 S.E.2d 754

324 N.C. 343

STATE of North Carolina v. Darryl Eugene HUNT.

No. 507A85.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

May 4, 1989.

Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen. by Steven F. Bryant, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.

Adam Stein, Chapel Hill, for defendant.

MARTIN, Justice.

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree based upon the felony murder doctrine and sentenced to life imprisonment. Although defendant raises several assignments of error, we find it necessary to discuss only one: The state's introduction of hearsay evidence for impeachment, corroborative, and substantive purposes was improper, and the prejudicial effect of that evidence entitles the defendant to a new trial.

Evidence presented by the state tended to show that the victim was raped and stabbed to death at approximately 6:45 a.m. on 10 August 1984 in Winston-Salem. Three witnesses for the state identified defendant as the man they had seen in inculpatory circumstances shortly before, during, and after the assault on the victim. The first witness had driven past a black man and a white woman walking closely together near the field where the victim's body was later found. The witness identified defendant less than one month later from both photographic and in-person lineups. A second witness walking by the same field at around 6:40 a.m. actually observed the assault and called to report it. The witness testified that he had gotten a good look at the face of the assailant, whom he identified in court as defendant. This witness had also identified defendant in photographic and in-person lineups. The state's third witness was employed by a hotel in downtown Winston-Salem. At approximately 6:45 a.m. he had seen a black male enter the hotel lobby and go directly to the men's room. The witness testified that he had seen this man on at least three other occasions when the man had asked to use the restroom. Because on this occasion the man remained so long in the restroom, the employee asked a security guard to tell him to leave. The employee entered the restroom about a half-hour later and saw red-tinted water in the sink and bloody paper towels. Although this witness did not make a connection between the man he had seen and defendant until he saw the latter's picture in the paper almost a year after the murder, he positively identified defendant as the man who had used the restroom.

Defendant testified that he and his friend Sammy Mitchell had spent the night of 9 August at the McKee household, arriving around 6 p.m. and coming and going until around 11 or 11:30, when he fell asleep in a living room chair. Defendant testified that he had wakened around 7:30 the next morning and had left with Sammy around 8:30, taking the bus downtown, stopping for breakfast, then going on to the courthouse where Mitchell had to make an appearance. Sammy Mitchell attested to essentially the same whereabouts, times, and activities involving defendant and himself the 9th and 10th of August. The testimony of three residents of the McKee household similarly corroborated defendant's account of spending the night of 9 August in that house and not leaving until sometime after 7 a.m.

Marie Crawford, a fourteen-year-old prostitute, was called by the state to testify. After preliminary questions eliciting her acknowledgment of her occupation and her close friendship with defendant, the prosecutor asked her directly whether she had ever come to his office and given him a statement. She admitted that she had come to his office but first denied, then stated she could not recall, having given him or the police detective a statement. Defendant objected to the state's offer to refresh the witness's memory as to the statements, and a voir dire followed.

During the voir dire, Marie Crawford was reminded of two statements she had made to police officers, and signed transcriptions of those statements were shown to her. Marie repeatedly denied knowledge or memory of these, admitting that it was her signature subscribed on the statements, but denying any memory of uttering the transcribed words or of signing the paper upon which they had been written. The statements as read to the witness on voir dire, if believed, strongly contradicted defendant's evidence as to his whereabouts the night of 9-10 August:

[O]n August 10th Mr. Darryl Hunt and Sammy Mitchell were at Motel 6 and Darryl Hunt and Sammy Mitchell left the room at about 6:00 a.m. and that they were both wearing black shirts and black pants and Darryl told me he was going to call a cab. The next time I saw Darryl was about 9:30 a.m. and he was nervous when he came back to the motel room and he said he needed a drink. Darryl had mud or grass stains on his pants knees[.]

[A]bout two weeks ago me and Darryl were at Motel 6 and Darryl was saying some stuff about the white lady that got killed downtown and Darryl said that Sammy did it when we were watching the Crimestoppers on the news and the television and I said to Darryl I wish I knew who killed that lady because I could use the money and Darryl said Sammy did it and he fucked her too.

At the conclusion of Marie's voir dire testimony, defendant argued that the state should not be permitted to impeach its witness with the prior inconsistent statements, reasoning that the probative value of such would be overwhelmed by its tendency to prejudice defendant. The trial court denied defendant's motion to suppress the statements, concluding that the witness may have been hostile or unwilling, that it was permissible for the state to cross-examine her respecting the alleged statements, and that the relevance and probative value of her testimony would substantially outweigh any danger of unfair prejudice or confusion.

Before the jury, Marie Crawford again denied that she had made the prior statements. Despite the fact that her signature was inscribed beneath both statements and despite her admission that she remembered signing a piece of paper, she persistently denied having made the statements themselves and, to the extent of her knowledge, their truth.

Q. Now, on August 30th, 1984, did you have a conversation with Officer Daulton while you were being detained in this courthouse and being tried for soliciting for prostitution and prostitution?

A. I don't remember.

Q. And do you remember the statement you made to him on that day?

A. No, sir, I don't.

Q. Do you remember that you told him that on the nights of August 9th, 1984 and August 10th, 1984, that you spent the night with Darryl Hunt and Sammy Mitchell and that they were with you at Motel 6 on Patterson Avenue?

A. No, sir, I did not.

Q. Are you saying that you did not make that statement or you don't remember making that statement?

A. I did not make that statement.

Q. And on September the 11th, 1984, did you make a statement to Officer Daulton?

A. No, sir.

Q. Referring to what is marked State's Exhibit No. 38, would you look at Exhibit 38 and I'll ask you if that is a statement that you made?

A. I do not remember making this statement.

Q. Is that your signature on that statement?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And did you make the following statement to Officer--

At this point defendant objected, but the trial court, inquiring whether Officer Daulton would later be testifying, overruled defendant's objection "for [the] purpose of corroborating the testimony of a later witness" and instructed the jury accordingly. The two statements were then read to the jury.

These statements were reintroduced through the testimony of the police detective to whom they had been made. The officer testified that Marie had recounted the substance of the first statement to him in an interview on 30 August 1984, and that this and the second statement were both transcribed on 11 September. He testified that he had read the transcriptions to her and had allowed her to read them before she signed them. When the state offered the statements themselves into evidence, defendant objected again, reminding the court that, as he had understood the court's prior ruling, the admission of the statements was not to be as substantive evidence but only for the purpose of challenging credibility. The court overruled defendant's objection and allowed the introduction of both statements into evidence without a limiting instruction.

In its final charge to the jury, the trial court instructed the jury that it had heard evidence that Marie Crawford had made prior statements that conflicted with her testimony at trial, but that the jury must not consider the earlier statements as evidence of the truth of what was said at that earlier time; however, such evidence could be considered by the jury in determining the credibility of the witness. Nevertheless, in recapitulating the testimony of Officer Daulton, the court reiterated the substance of both statements.

A.

Analyzing whether these statements were properly used at defendant's trial is complicated in this case by the fact that they appear to have been admitted for both credibility and substantive purposes under the authorization of more than one of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence. In order to determine whether these statements were properly admitted for any one purpose, it is necessary to examine not only the defendant's stated grounds for objection and the trial court's reason for admitting the statements on each occasion, but also the purposes for which they were actually used.

After voir dire of Marie Crawford, the trial court ruled the statements admissible for the purpose of impeaching the credibility of that witness, a practice that North Carolina's Evidence Code expressly permits: "The credibility of a witness may be attacked by any party, including the party calling him." N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 607 (1988). It is a logical corollary to this rule that the cross-examination of a party's own witness be governed by the same rules that govern the cross-examination...