State v. Ingle
| Decision Date | 29 July 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 98A93,98A93 |
| Citation | 445 S.E.2d 880,336 N.C. 617 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina, v. Phillip Lee INGLE. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Michael F. Easley, Atty. Gen. by Joan H. Byers, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., for the State.
Harry H. Harkins, Jr., Durham, for defendant-appellant.
On 14 October 1991, defendant, Phillip Lee Ingle, was indicted by a Rutherford County grand jury for the first-degree murders of William Fred Davis and Margaret Shufford Davis. On 12 November 1992, defendant's motion for change of venue due to pretrial publicity was granted by Judge Chase B. Saunders. Venue was changed to Cleveland County. The offenses were joined for trial on 8 February 1993. On 17 February 1993, the jury returned verdicts of guilty of first-degree murder on the basis of malice, premeditation, and deliberation. Following a sentencing proceeding pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000, the jury recommended and the trial court, on 19 February 1993, imposed the sentence of death in both cases.
Defendant has brought forth twenty-nine assignments of error. After a careful and thorough review of the transcript, the record, the briefs, and oral arguments of counsel, we conclude that defendant received a fair trial and sentencing proceeding, free from prejudicial error.
The evidence presented at trial tended to show the following: In July 1991, William Fred Davis, sixty-eight years old, and his wife, Margaret Shufford Davis, sixty-seven years old, lived in their home in a rural area of Rutherford County. The nearest residence was a mobile home located about 150 yards from the house, which defendant had rented from the Davises in 1987.
On Sunday, 28 July 1991, Mr. and Mrs. Davis were given a ride home from church. Mrs. Davis was carrying a light-beige pocketbook with a billfold inside it. Later that day, Kathy Davis, the Davises' daughter-in-law, spoke with Mrs. Davis and saw Mr. Davis when he stopped by her home to deliver some vegetables. Ruth Blanton, the Davises' daughter, saw her father that afternoon in a field near his home and also spoke with her mother at the Davises' home. Mrs. Blanton again stopped by the Davises' home around 6:00 p.m. to borrow a vacuum cleaner. No one was at the home, but the back door was unlocked, so she picked up the vacuum cleaner and left.
Sometime between 6:00 p.m. and 8:45 p.m., defendant was driving around the area of the victims' home. He knew the Davises from having rented a mobile home from them in 1987. He went to the Davises' house and drove his car around to the back of the house. He parked his car, took an axe handle from it, and entered the house through the unlocked back door. Mrs. Davis was in the kitchen, and defendant approached her from behind and began to beat her on the head with the axe handle until she fell to the floor. After doing this, defendant went into the den of the house, where Mr. Davis was seated in a recliner watching television. Because Mr. Davis was hard of hearing, the television was turned up to a high volume, and the evidence tended to show that he was unaware that defendant had attacked his wife in the kitchen. After moving to the den, defendant attacked Mr. Davis and beat him on the head with the axe handle. Both Mr. and Mrs. Davis died as a result of the wounds inflicted by defendant.
The autopsies of Mr. and Mrs. Davis were conducted on 30 July 1991. There were six major lacerations on the scalp and face of An external examination of Mr. Davis showed blood and brain tissue on his head, face, and clothing. Both of his eyes had been blackened, and he had bled into the substance of his left eye. His skull bones had been thoroughly fractured and pressed inward into his brain. There were twelve lacerations on his face and scalp. His dentures were protruding from his mouth. His left little finger was almost completely torn from his hand, and his left ring finger had abrasions on it. The wounds to Mr. Davis' hand could have been sustained as Mr. Davis tried to defend himself or could have been caused by the hand resting on the top of Mr. Davis' head as the first blows were inflicted. The examining physician testified that the nature of the injuries to both victims was consistent with having been caused by a blunt instrument such as an axe handle.
Mrs. Davis. An internal examination revealed contusions, hemorrhaging into the brain, and multiple skull fractures. Also present were wounds to her left elbow and right hand that could have been sustained as she tried to defend herself or that could have been the result of a fall.
After beating the couple to death, defendant left the house, taking Mrs. Davis' pocketbook and a floral-patterned dress that belonged to her. He then went to an area about three miles away from the Davises' home, discarded the dress, and set fire to the pocketbook and its contents. Defendant then departed the area. He returned to the area some time later, picked up the pocketbook, and threw it and the axe handle into a creek. Defendant later led law enforcement officers to the spot where he disposed of these items. The pocketbook was discovered on the bank of the stream, but the axe handle was never found.
While defendant was away from the area where the pocketbook was left burning, it was spotted by a local resident, who notified the Sheriff's Department. By the time the resident and a Sheriff's deputy returned to the spot, defendant had retrieved the pocketbook. The deputy did discover the dress that had belonged to Mrs. Davis.
Items found in the pocketbook after its recovery by police and at the site where it was partially burned were identified as items that had customarily been carried by Mrs. Davis, and the pocketbook itself was identified as one that had belonged to Mrs. Davis.
A police investigation of the Davis murders did not lead to an arrest for several weeks. During that time, in mid-August of 1991, defendant visited with his friend Jeff Houser. During a conversation with Houser, defendant made the statement, Defendant asked Houser if he needed anyone killed, and Houser jokingly responded by indicating that he did and pointed to his neighbor's house. Defendant then began to ask questions about Houser's neighbor, so Houser told defendant that he was just kidding about wanting his neighbor killed and that the neighbor was "a real big guy and they're heavily armed." Defendant responded: When Houser told defendant to forget about it, defendant responded: "Well, man, I wouldn't be telling you this, but I know I can trust you...."
Some weeks later, around the 10th or 12th of September 1991, defendant returned to Houser's residence suffering from a black eye. Another visitor at Houser's home, Steve White, asked defendant about the black eye, and defendant stated that he "fell and hit a door knob." White did not believe that to be the truth and told defendant so. After asking Houser if he was still having trouble with his neighbor, defendant stated, "I'll take care of him for you." Defendant said, Defendant went on to say,
At the time of this second visit to Houser's residence, defendant had recently committed another double murder in Gaston County. Defendant had broken into the rural home of an elderly couple named E.Z. and Sarah Willis and had beaten them both to death with a tire iron. Defendant's black eye had been caused when Mr. Willis hit defendant in the head with his cane.
As a result of the conversations defendant had with Houser and White, the men contacted Defendant gave a statement that detailed his involvement in both the Willis and Davis murders. He did not offer any sort of motive for the murders but stated that he did not kill the victims for sexual gratification or to steal from them.
the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). Subsequently, defendant was questioned by law enforcement officers with regard to the Willis murders. When questioned about the Davis murders, defendant stated, "Yeah, I killed them, too."
In his defense, defendant presented evidence designed to show that at the time of the murders, he was experiencing a psychotic episode that was the result of a borderline personality disorder. Defendant also presented evidence of an extremely troubled childhood in which he had witnessed his mother overdose on drugs and attempt to commit suicide in his presence on a number of occasions. Defendant himself had attempted suicide on more than one occasion, once attempting to hang himself from a tree at age five or six. On another occasion, at age nineteen, defendant stated that he wanted to kill himself and then shot himself in the stomach with a rifle. There was also evidence that defendant had been sexually abused by an older man while a child.
Defendant had been a continuous abuser of drugs and alcohol and had been periodically admitted to various hospitals and mental institutions for problems associated with drug and alcohol abuse.
A week or two prior to the Davis murders, defendant had been involved in an argument involving his grandmother, and it was defendant's psychiatric expert's opinion that it could have been the sight of elderly people, the Davises, that triggered what the expert characterized as the psychotic episode that resulted in the murders.
Other facts will be presented as necessary for the proper resolution of the issues brought forward by defendant.
In his first assignment of error, defendant contends that it was error for the trial court to refuse to submit the lesser charge of second-degree murder with regard to the killing of Mr. Davis. The trial court did submit this offense with regard to the killing of Mrs. Davis.
"A trial court is required to instruct on a lesser included...
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