State v. Hyman
| Decision Date | 17 August 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 245A08-2,245A08-2 |
| Citation | 817 S.E.2d 157,371 N.C. 363 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Terrence Lowell HYMAN |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Mary Carla Babb and Nicholaos G. Vlahos, Assistant Attorneys General, for the State-appellant.
Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender, by Nicholas C. Woomer-Deters, Assistant Appellate Defender, for defendant-appellee.
The question before us in this case is whether the record supports the trial court's decision to deny defendant's motion for appropriate relief. After carefully considering the record in light of the applicable law, we hold that, while the claim asserted in defendant's motion for appropriate relief is not subject to the procedural bar established by N.C.G.S. § 15A-1419(a)(3), the trial court did not err by denying defendant's motion for appropriate relief for the reasons stated by the Court of Appeals. As a result, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals, in part; reverse that decision, in part; and remand this case to the Court of Appeals for consideration of defendant's remaining challenges to the trial court's order denying his motion for appropriate relief.
At approximately 10:00 p.m. on 5 May 2001, Earnest Bennett arrived at the L and Q nightclub with his friends Shelton Lamont Gilliam, Tyrone Knight, and Alton Bennett. As the night progressed and early morning arrived, a man confronted Mr. Bennett, leading to an argument between the two men that escalated into an altercation after a "crew of people" approached Mr. Bennett and began to hit him with "bottles, chairs and basically everything that they could find."
Derrick Speller testified for the State at defendant's trial that, after the altercation had been in progress for approximately fifteen minutes, he observed defendant Terrence Lowell Hyman enter the nightclub with a firearm and shoot it at Mr. Bennett. At that point, Mr. Speller observed Mr. Bennett "clench his side and run for the door." As Mr. Bennett reached the nightclub door, defendant shot him again in the small of his back. According to Mr. Speller, Mr. Bennett and defendant exited the nightclub once defendant had shot Mr. Bennett a second time. Outside the nightclub, Mr. Speller saw defendant "kneeling down over" Mr. Bennett, who was on the ground, and shoot Mr. Bennett a third time.1 Mr. Bennett died as a result of the gunshot wounds that he sustained on this occasion.
On the other hand, Demetrius Pugh testified on defendant's behalf that he observed Demetrius Jordan shoot Mr. Bennett multiple times inside and outside of the nightclub. According to Demetrius Pugh, Mr. Jordan had a .38 caliber handgun inside the nightclub and procured a nine millimeter handgun from his van after leaving the nightclub's interior.2 In addition, Lloyd Pugh testified on defendant's behalf that he heard two gunshots inside the nightclub. Although Lloyd Pugh could not see who had fired these shots, he knew that defendant had not fired them because he could see defendant, who was leaving the nightclub at that time, and observed that he did not have a firearm on his person when the shots were fired. As Lloyd Pugh attempted to bring the fight inside the nightclub under control, he heard additional gunshots outside. Simultaneously, Lloyd Pugh observed defendant reentering the nightclub without a firearm in his possession.
On 30 July 2001, the Bertie County grand jury returned a bill of indictment charging defendant with first-degree murder. The charges against defendant came on for trial before the trial court and a jury at the 25 August 2003 criminal session of Superior Court, Bertie County.
During the trial, Mr. Speller testified on direct examination that defendant's trial counsel, Teresa Smallwood, had spoken with him before the trial and asked for his help with the case.3 In the course of a cross-examination conducted by Ms. Smallwood, Mr. Speller testified that he had sought assistance from Ms. Smallwood's law firm with respect to a probation violation proceeding at some point prior to the time that this case came on for trial. In addition, Mr. Speller testified that:
At one point in her cross-examination of Mr. Speller, Ms. Smallwood attempted to question Mr. Speller using a one-page document that had Mr. Speller's name at the top and writing on the right-hand side, but was precluded from doing so by the trial court.
On 12 September 2003, the jury returned a verdict convicting defendant of first-degree murder. On 16 September 2003, the jury returned a verdict determining that no aggravating circumstances existed and that defendant should be sentenced to a term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Based upon the jury's verdicts, the trial court entered a judgment sentencing defendant to a term of life imprisonment without parole.
In seeking relief from the trial court's judgment before the Court of Appeals, defendant argued that the trial court had erred by failing "to conduct a hearing when the trial court became aware of a potential conflict of interest on the part of" Ms. Smallwood arising from the fact "that [Ms.] Smallwood had previously represented [Mr.] Speller in an unrelated case." State v. Hyman , 172 N.C. App. 173, 616 S.E.2d 28, 2005 WL 1804345, at *4 (2005) (unpublished) ( Hyman I ). After determining that it could not "find from the face of the record that defendant's attorney's prior representation of [Mr.] Speller affected her representation of defendant," id. at *6, the Court of Appeals remanded this case to the Superior Court, Bertie County, "for an evidentiary hearing ‘to determine if the actual conflict adversely affected [the attorney's] performance,’ " id . (alteration in original) (quoting State v. James , 111 N.C. App. 785, 791, 433 S.E.2d 755, 759 (1993) ).
An evidentiary hearing was conducted before the trial court on remand on 3 October 2005 and 2 November 2005. At the remand hearing, Ms. Smallwood testified that the information that she used during her cross-examination of Mr. Speller stemmed from a meeting that she had had with Mr. Speller, during which she had taken notes. According to available court records, Ms. Smallwood appeared on Mr. Speller's behalf at a probation revocation hearing on 26 September 2002, although Ms. Ruffin was listed as Mr. Speller's attorney of record in that case.5 On 28 November 2005, the trial court entered an order concluding that Ms. Smallwood's "representation of [defendant] was not adversely affected by her previous representation of [Mr.] Speller." On appeal to the Court of Appeals from the trial court's remand order, defendant argued that "[Ms.] Smallwood's actual conflict of interest adversely affected her representation of him." State v. Hyman , 182 N.C. App. 529, 642 S.E.2d 548, 2007 WL 968753, at *2 (2007) (unpublished) ( Hyman II ). The Court of Appeals rejected defendant's challenge to the trial court's remand order on the grounds that defendant had not challenged any of the trial court's findings of fact, rendering them conclusive for purposes of appellate review, id. at *4, and that "[d]efendant [had] failed to show [that] the trial court [had] erred when it concluded that [Ms.] Smallwood's representation of him was not adversely affected by her previous representation of [Mr.] Speller," id. at *5. As a result, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's remand order. Id . at *6.
On 8 May 2008, defendant filed a petition seeking the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North...
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State v. Allen
...in restraints was not to be considered as evidence of his guilt. ¶ 54 Consistent with the logic of our decision in State v. Hyman , 371 N.C. 363, 817 S.E.2d 157 (2018), we conclude that the MAR court erred in summarily dismissing Allen's shackling claim as procedurally barred. We reject the......
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Hyman v. Hoekstra
...approached Mr. Bennett and began to hit him with "bottles, chairs and basically everything that they could find." State v. Hyman , 371 N.C. 363, 817 S.E.2d 157, 159 (2018). As the altercation escalated, Bennett was shot multiple times inside and outside the club. He later succumbed to his i......
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State v. McDougald, COA21-286
...support the conclusions of law, and whether the conclusions of law support the order entered by the trial court." State v. Hyman , 371 N.C. 363, 382, 817 S.E.2d 157, 169 (2018) (quotation marks and citation omitted). "[T]he trial court's findings of fact are conclusive on appeal if supporte......
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State v. Tucker
...reviewing court "to determine whether the particular claim could have been brought on direct review [or in a previous MAR]." State v. Hyman, 371 N.C. 363, 383 (2018) State v. Fair, 354 N.C. 131, 166 (2001)). This Court has further acknowledged that for a claim to be subject to N.C. G.S. § 1......