State v. King
| Decision Date | 01 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | COA21-93 |
| Citation | 868 S.E.2d 913 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Darius Heasley KING, Defendant. |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Special Deputy Attorney General Marc Bernstein, for the State.
Hynson Law, PLLC, by Warren D. Hynson, Raleigh, for Defendant.
¶ 1 Defendant Darius Heasley King appeals from the trial court's judgment entering a jury verdict finding Defendant guilty of first-degree murder. Defendant contends (1) the State failed to present substantial evidence of premeditation and deliberation; (2) the trial court committed plain error by failing to instruct the jury ex mero motu on the defense of automatism; (3) the trial court abused its discretion by not intervening ex mero motu to prevent improper juror questioning during voir dire ; and (4) the trial court reversibly erred by not intervening ex mero motu to prevent improper remarks in the State's closing statement. We discern no error.
¶ 2 This case arises out of the murder of Hubert Roland Hunter, Jr., by Defendant in Hunter's apartment on 24 March 2018. The evidence at trial tended to show as follows:
¶ 3 Defendant and Hunter lived across the hall from one another in the Sienna apartment complex in Morganton. Mary Williams lived in the apartment directly underneath Hunter. Around midnight on the night of 24 March 2018, Williams heard a "big ruckus upstairs" coming from Hunter's apartment and thought someone "was just playing or something." Williams heard a "whole lot of stomping and moving around and shuffling", but was not concerned because she routinely heard running noises coming from Hunter's apartment. Williams did not call the police.
¶ 4 The next afternoon, two of Hunter's friends attempted to visit with Hunter at his apartment and instead found his body lying on the apartment floor. Hunter's friends called the police. Police arrived at Hunter's apartment and discovered his body still lying on the floor, surrounded by signs of an altercation. Hunter's body was lying face-down across the threshold between his bedroom and hallway, blood staining the side of his face and his right arm bent behind his back. A plastic bag and an orange and blue sweatshirt were on the floor near Hunter's head. Bloodstains scattered the nearby floor and walls. Three kitchen drawers were left open. In the living room, an area rug was "[b]unched up" and the couch and other furniture were in disarray.
¶ 5 Shortly thereafter, a maintenance worker with the Sienna apartment complex reported to police that he discovered a white plastic bag containing bloodstained clothing in a dumpster behind the apartments. Police recovered the bag from the dumpster, and found a pair of jeans and an eight-inch kitchen knife inside the bag. The jeans and knife were also stained with what appeared to be blood.
¶ 6 The State conducted DNA analysis on items found in Hunter's apartment and the dumpster. DNA on the knife and a section of the orange and blue sweatshirt matched Hunter's DNA. DNA found on the knife also indicated a second, minor contributor, but the analysis was inconclusive and the State could not determine whether Defendant "did or did not handle the handle of the knife." The collar of the sweatshirt and the waist of the jeans contained DNA matching Defendant. The State's medical examiner also examined the injuries on Hunter's body. Hunter sustained three stabbing and slashing wounds to his neck, one of which was deep enough to fracture his spine
. He also sustained blunt force injuries to his head, arms, and legs. Additionally, the medical examiner identified evidence of hemorrhaging in Hunter's blood vessels, neck muscles, and tongue, which led the medical examiner to conclude that strangulation was the ultimate cause of Hunter's death.
¶ 7 Law enforcement interviewed Defendant multiple times. The State played recordings of Defendant's interviews for the jury. During the first interview on 26 March 2018, Defendant told law enforcement that, though he knew Hunter, he did not know Hunter had been killed, did not know any reason why Hunter would have been killed, and personally would not have fought with Hunter.
¶ 8 Law enforcement arrested Defendant and interviewed him again the next day. During this second interview, Defendant told law enforcement that he went to Hunter's apartment on March 24 to collect three dollars that Hunter owed him for a cell phone. Defendant said that Hunter refused to pay him. Defendant explained that he threatened to "beat the [expletive] out of [Hunter]", and Hunter "pulled a knife" in response. Defendant then "walked up on [Hunter]" and the two began fighting. Defendant admitted that he punched Hunter, choked him, and put the plastic bag over his head, but denied stabbing Hunter. According to Defendant, Hunter held the knife during the entirety of the fight and was incidentally stabbed in the neck while Hunter and Defendant wrestled. Defendant admitted that he took the knife out of Hunter's neck, then threw his own bloodstained jeans and the knife into the dumpster behind the apartment complex.
¶ 9 Throughout the second interview, Defendant maintained that he fought in self-defense after Hunter grabbed the knife. Defendant told law enforcement that he believed Hunter wanted to hurt him with the knife. Defendant insisted Hunter had used the knife to cut him, and showed law enforcement cuts on his hands and arms. Defendant admitted that he had choked Hunter in an attempt to make him pass out and stop fighting. Defendant claimed that he had also passed out at some point during the struggle, and that he had "blacked out" and "go[ne] off" out of anger.
¶ 10 Law enforcement took Defendant to the magistrate's office following his arrest, where Defendant gave a third interview to news media. Defendant once again explained that he went to collect money from Hunter, then beat Hunter with his fists in self-defense when Hunter pulled out a knife.
¶ 11 Defendant presented a single witness before the jury, a friend who testified that he was with Defendant most of the day and evening on 24 March 2018 and claimed Defendant never mentioned Hunter. At the close of the State's evidence and at the close of all evidence, Defendant moved to dismiss the charge of first-degree murder, arguing the State failed to show sufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation. The trial court denied both motions. The jury found Defendant guilty of first-degree murder. The trial court entered judgment on the jury's verdict and sentenced Defendant to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Defendant gave notice of appeal in open court.
¶ 12 Defendant filed a conditional petition for writ of certiorari alongside his brief on appeal, asking this Court to consider his appeal of the trial court's judgment in the event that defense counsel's oral notice of appeal was insufficient. Rule 4 of the North Carolina Rules of Appellate Procedure states that a party may "appeal from a judgment or order of a superior or district court rendered in a criminal action" by "giving oral notice of appeal at trial," and such notice "shall designate the judgment or order from which appeal is taken and the court to which appeal is taken[.]" N.C. R. App. P. 4(a)(1), (b) (emphasis added).
¶ 13 Here, defense counsel informed the trial court in open court: "With respect to jury's verdict, we enter a notice of appeal." Defense counsel did not specifically state that Defendant sought to appeal from the trial court's judgment entering the jury verdict. Nonetheless, Defense counsel's words were clear enough to convey Defendant's intent to appeal his first-degree murder conviction to this Court. Furthermore, both parties have complied at each stage of the appellate process and the State has not been prejudiced by the imperfect wording of Defendant's appeal. See State v. Daughtridge , 248 N.C. App. 707, 712, 789 S.E.2d 667, 670 (2016) ( the "[d]efendant's oral notice of appeal was sufficient to confer jurisdiction upon this Court" even though defense counsel's language was "not a model of clarity," where the language "manifest[ed] efendant's intention to enter a notice of appeal" and "the State [did] not contend that it was misled or prejudiced in any way by any defect in efendant's notice of appeal"). Therefore, we hold that Defendant's oral notice of appeal sufficiently conferred jurisdiction on this Court. We dismiss Defendant's conditional petition for writ of certiorari as moot.
¶ 14 However, Defendant has preserved for review only the trial court's judgment entering the jury's verdict convicting him of first-degree murder. In his brief on appeal, Defendant includes factual and procedural history from a pre-trial hearing regarding Defendant's competency to stand trial. The Record contains no notice of appeal challenging the trial court's decision from the competency hearing. Therefore, we consider only the evidence presented in Defendant's first-degree murder trial in our review.
¶ 15 Defendant contends the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss by arguing "there was insufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation to support first-degree murder."
¶ 16 We review the trial court's denial of a motion to dismiss to determine whether, in the light most favorable to the State, "there [was] substantial evidence (1) of each essential element of the offense charged, or of a lesser offense included therein, and (2) of [the] defendant's being the perpetrator of such offense." State v. Powell , 299 N.C. 95, 98, 261 S.E.2d 114, 117 (1980). This Court's review is "concerned only about whether the evidence [was] sufficient for jury consideration, not about the weight of the evidence." State v. Fritsch , 351 N.C. 373, 379, 526 S.E.2d 451, 455–56 (2000) (citation omitted). "Contradictions and discrepancies do not...
To continue reading
Request your trial