State v. Jackson
| Decision Date | 03 June 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 351A84,351A84 |
| Citation | 343 S.E.2d 814,317 N.C. 1 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | , 54 USLW 2646 STATE of North Carolina v. James Wallace JACKSON. |
Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen. by Joan H. Byers, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.
Gerald L. Bass, Raleigh, for defendant-appellant.
The State presented evidence which tended to show that on 15 March 1981, Leslie Hall Kennedy, a student at North Carolina State University, was living in a house located at 207 Cox Avenue in Raleigh. The house was divided into three separate apartments, and Mrs. Kennedy occupied the one which was across the front of the house. Mrs. Kennedy's husband was working in Florida at the time, and she was living alone. Mr. Kennedy testified that the lock on the front door often failed to catch and that Mrs. Kennedy usually neglected to close the door's bolt lock.
One of the other two apartments was occupied by two North Carolina State students, Ron Riggan and Ivan Dickey. Riggan returned to the apartment from spring vacation at approximately 7:00 p.m. on 15 March 1981. His girlfriend, Jamie Morehead, subsequently came over for a visit. At some point between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m., Riggan saw Mrs. Kennedy's car drive up to the house. Although he did not see Mrs. Kennedy, Riggan heard only one car door being shut. He did not hear any conversation or other sound which would indicate that anyone was with Mrs. Kennedy. At approximately 9:00 p.m., Ivan Dickey returned to the apartment. Riggan, Dickey, and Morehead proceeded to watch television and talk.
At approximately 9:00 p.m., Mrs. Kennedy made a phone call to her husband. They spoke for approximately twenty-five minutes. Near the end of the conversation, Mrs. Kennedy told her husband that she was going to sit in bed and read for a little while.
At approximately 10:35 p.m., Riggan, Dickey, and Morehead heard two loud, piercing screams coming from Mrs. Kennedy's apartment. Riggan went to a common wall adjoining the two apartments and called out to Mrs. Kennedy. After failing to hear a response, all three went around to the front of the house. They observed that the front door was open and that there was blood on the front porch around the door. Riggan decided to go back to his apartment to arm himself. At that point, they heard a loud laugh emanating from the vicinity of Pullen Park. Dickey decided to walk up the street to investigate the laugh. Riggan, accompanied by Morehead, went back to his apartment and got a weight lifting bar to use as a club. Dickey soon returned, and they walked back around to the front of the house.
As they neared the front of the house, a man, subsequently identified as the defendant, walked up and stated that a girl had told him that she had heard someone in the area scream. Riggan confirmed this, and he, Dickey, and the defendant went up on the porch and looked through the bedroom window. They could not see whether anyone was on the bed. However, they did notice a steel hand file on a chair in front of the window. The three then proceeded into the apartment. Riggan soon discovered Mrs. Kennedy lying on a bed with blood beneath her arm. She appeared to be dead.
At that point, Riggan and Dickey left the apartment and, along with Morehead, started back to their apartment to call the police. Riggan, however, noticed that the defendant was not with them, and he asked Dickey to go back and watch the defendant. Riggan proceeded to call the police. Dickey went back to Kennedy's apartment and called out for the defendant. Approximately one minute later, the defendant came out the door and remarked that "somebody messed her up bad." Dickey and the defendant then went back to the apartment shared by Dickey and Riggan. Shortly thereafter, the police arrived. All four were instructed to "stay around" the apartment so that their statements could be obtained. The police then entered the house. Within a few moments, Morehead observed the defendant walking away from the apartment.
Mrs. Kennedy was dead at the time the officers entered the house. Dr. Dana Copeland, a pathologist, testified that he performed an autopsy on the deceased on 16 March 1981. The autopsy revealed a stab wound extending from a point in the middle of the back eleven inches from the top of the head completely through the body to a point slightly above the left breast. He stated that, in his opinion, the wound could have been caused by a ten-inch butcher knife. Dr. Copeland also testified that, in his opinion, the deceased died as a result of the loss of blood through the wound into the left side of the chest.
The day after the killing, Mr. Kennedy returned to Raleigh and walked though the apartment with a detective of the Raleigh Police Department. While in the apartment, Kennedy noticed that a ten-inch butcher knife was missing from the knife rack which was located in the kitchen. On 31 March 1981, the police discovered a butcher knife of the same brand as the one missing from the Kennedy apartment near a railroad track a short distance from the apartment on Cox Avenue.
On three separate occasions, 26 March 1981, 27 March 1981, and 8 April 1981, the police questioned the defendant about the killing. The factual circumstances surrounding those interviews are set out in detail in this Court's opinion in State v. Jackson, 308 N.C. 549, 304 S.E.2d 134 (1983). We deem it unnecessary to repeat those facts here. On the evening of 8 April 1981, the defendant made a statement in which he said that he had met Mrs. Kennedy on 13 March 1981 and that she had invited him to come over to her apartment on 15 March. After he arrived at the apartment, they went into the bedroom and Mrs. Kennedy got in bed. At first, the defendant sat on the bed and talked with her. However, the defendant stated that he believed Mrs. Kennedy wanted to engage in sexual activity, and he soon began to touch and feel her. After a few minutes of such activity, Mrs. Kennedy began screaming. The defendant stated that he became very frightened. He said he panicked, picked up a knife that was on a table beside the bed, and stabbed her in the back. He then ran out of the house and down the street toward Pullen Park.
The defendant further stated that he was afraid that he had killed the woman and decided to go back to the apartment to see if she was still alive. He placed the knife beside a tree and walked back to the apartment. When he returned, there were other people standing in the yard. He told them that a girl had said that she heard someone scream. He and two other men then entered the house. After one of the men saw the body, they left to call the police. The defendant stated that he went back inside the house, picked up the steel file that was on a chair in the bedroom, and placed it in the knife rack in the kitchen. He said that after the police arrived and went inside the house to investigate, he left the scene and walked back down the street. He stated that he retrieved the knife and threw it away near some railroad tracks and then went home.
The defendant presented no evidence.
Based on this and other evidence, the jury found the defendant guilty of first-degree murder. The court entered judgment sentencing the defendant to a term of life imprisonment.
The defendant initially contends that the trial court erred by allowing the prosecution to introduce his 8 April 1981 statement into evidence. He argues that the factual circumstances surrounding the various interview sessions show that he was in custody at the time the statement was made, and since the officers did not have probable cause to take him into custody, the confession is inadmissible under Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979). He also contends that the facts surrounding the interview sessions show that the confession was involuntary.
On 18 February 1982, a superior court judge granted the defendant's motion to suppress the confession. The State appealed from this order. We reversed the trial court and held the statement to be admissible in State v. Jackson, 308 N.C. 549, 304 S.E.2d 134. In that case, we carefully examined the factual circumstances surrounding the three interview sessions and determined that the defendant was not in custody prior to the time he gave the statement and therefore the confession's exclusion was not required by Dunaway. We also concluded that the statement was voluntarily made by the defendant.
The defendant acknowledges that these issues have already been decided adversely to him. He contends, however, that there is additional evidence which was not previously before this Court which mandates the reversal of our prior decision. We do not agree. The defendant has failed to point to any evidence produced at trial which was not previously before this Court that tends to strengthen his argument that he was in custody at the time the statement was made. The defendant has likewise failed to point to any new evidence which strengthens his assertion that the statement was not voluntarily made. Since the evidence relating to the admissibility of the inculpatory statement made by the defendant is virtually identical to the evidence which was previously before us, the doctrine of "the law of the case" applies to make our prior ruling on this issue conclusive. State v. Wright, 275 N.C. 242, 166 S.E.2d 681, cert. denied, 396 U.S. 934, 90 S.Ct. 275, 24 L.Ed.2d 232 (1969). See also State v. Hill, 281 N.C. 312, 188 S.E.2d 288 (1972); State v. Stone, 226 N.C. 97, 36 S.E.2d 704 (1946); State v. Lee, 213 N.C. 319, 195 S.E. 785 (1938). This assignment of error is overruled.
The defendant next argues that the trial court erred by limiting him to only six peremptory challenges. He argues that since he was being tried for first-degree murder, he was entitled to fourteen challenges. We do not agree.
N.C.G.S. § 15A-1217(a) provides that in a "capital case," a defendant is allowed...
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