State v. Lane
| Decision Date | 18 April 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. COA16-764,COA16-764 |
| Citation | 798 S.E.2d 437 (Table) |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. David Charles LANE, Defendant. |
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Sherri Horner Lawrence, for the State.
Appellate Defender G. Glenn Gerding, by Assistant Appellate Defender Daniel Shatz, for defendant.
Defendant David Charles Lane appeals from judgments entered upon jury verdicts finding him guilty of assault on a female and sexual battery. On appeal, defendant argues that: (1) the trial court failed to adequately address an absolute impasse between defendant and defense counsel regarding trial strategy, (2) the trial court erred in failing to give an additional jury instruction on the sexual battery charge, and (3) the trial court's Allen charge1 coerced the jury into reaching a unanimous verdict. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the first issue constitutes a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and we dismiss that claim without prejudice to defendant's right to file a motion for appropriate relief in the trial court. We find no error in the trial court's jury instructions on the sexual battery charge or in its Allen charge.
The State's evidence established the following facts at trial. On 5 August 2015, defendant went to the Sears department store located at Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. That same day, victim A.W. was working as the lead cashier at Sears. Defendant was seventy-two years old at the time, and he used a wheelchair to navigate the store.
At some point, a sales associate escorted defendant to the cash register in the home fashions department, where A.W. was working at the time, so that defendant could purchase a red cooking pot. While A.W. conducted the transaction, she asked defendant if he was a rewards program member and if he wished to apply for a credit card. Defendant repeatedly stated that he could not hear her, so A.W. leaned in closer and repeated her questions; however, defendant's hearing difficulties continued. At defendant's request, A.W. walked around the cashier's counter and bent down toward him.
As A.W. began explaining the reward and credit card programs, defendant "jumped" out of his wheelchair, "lunged" toward A.W., and grabbed her. A.W. fought to get away, but defendant "latched on" to A.W. and groped her breasts and all down the front side of her body. "The more [A.W.] fought, the harder [defendant] latched on[.]" Defendant eventually licked the side of A.W.'s neck and let her go. A.W. ran back behind the cashier's counter and called the store's loss prevention specialist for help, but no one answered the phone in that department. Strangely, defendant continued to engage in conversation with A.W., stating that she was pretty and that he enjoyed taking a "gander" around the mall by going into different stores. Because A.W. lacked the official authority to force individuals to leave the premises, she urged defendant to decide whether he "was going to buy [the red pot] or not[.]"
Defendant eventually completed his transaction, but he remained at A.W.'s cashier station for approximately thirty minutes. During that time, defendant began flirting with one of A.W.'s co-workers, a pregnant cashier who had returned to the home fashions department upon finishing her lunch break. After defendant left the home fashions department, A.W. found the loss prevention specialist, who located defendant in another department and asked him to leave the store. While the situation was being resolved, A.W. completed an incident report.
Despite his removal from the store in the afternoon on 5 January 2015, defendant returned to Sears later that evening, and he came back again on the morning of 6 January 2015. A.W. did not have any interaction with defendant on either occasion. When A.W. noticed that defendant had returned to the store on the morning of 7 August 2015, she notified the loss prevention department and stated that she would file a police report. Responding to a trespassing call at Hanes Mall, Winston-Salem Police Department Officer Mark Barker located defendant in Sears' electronics department. Officer Barker asked defendant if he had been involved in any inappropriate behavior at the store and defendant answered, "No, the manager already talked to me about that, and I told him it would never happen again." As Officer Barker's questioning continued, defendant gave somewhat cryptic and bizarre replies, including, "[W]ell if somebody told me to give them a good-bye kiss, I would have given them one." Officer Barker eventually arrested defendant.
On 10 September 2015, defendant stood trial in Forsyth County District Court on misdemeanor charges of sexual battery and assault on a female. After defendant was found guilty on both charges, he noticed an appeal to Forsyth County Superior Court.
Defendant was tried in superior court on 4 January 2016. On the following afternoon, the jury returned verdicts finding defendant guilty of assault on a female and sexual battery. The trial court then sentenced defendant to 75 days' imprisonment for each conviction and ordered defendant to register as a sex offender. Defendant appeals.
Defendant first argues that his constitutional right to control decisions related to his defense was violated when the trial court allowed defense counsel to proceed with trial despite defendant's statement that he was not ready to be tried. According to defendant, the trial court failed to adequately address an impasse between defendant and his counsel regarding trial strategy.
Immediately before the jury was selected, defendant, defense counsel, and the trial court engaged in the following exchange:
On appeal, defendant argues that the trial court erred by failing to require defense counsel to make a record of the dispute with defendant and to move for a continuance, and by allowing defense counsel's preference to proceed with trial to prevail over defendant's wishes when an absolute impasse concerning trial strategy had been reached. As explained below, we conclude that defendant has asserted an ineffective assistance of counsel claim that must be dismissed and resolved in the first instance by the trial court should defendant choose to file a motion for appropriate relief.
Defendant's Ali argument is largely based upon this Court's decision in State v. Floyd , 238 N.C. App. 110, 766 S.E.2d 361 (2014). In Floyd , the defendant repeatedly disrupted trial proceedings immediately after the cross-examination of a detective who had testified for the State. Id. at 119-22, 766 S.E.2d at 369-71. Although the defendant insisted that he wanted his trial counsel to pose certain questions to the detective that were never asked, the trial court responded, "that's between you and [Defendant's trial counsel], ... that's not for me to interject[,]" and then had the defendant removed from the courtroom. Id. at 122, 766 S.E.2d at 370-71 (). After noting that the trial court failed to inquire as to "the nature of the questions that efendant wanted to have posed to [the detective] on cross-examination" and "that the questions upon which [the defendant's] request was based were never posed despite his insistence that that be done," this Court concluded that the defendant "was denied his right to decide ‘how to conduct cross examination[ ].’ " Id. at 122, 766 S.E.2d at 371 (quoting Ali , 329 N.C. at 404, 407 S.E.2d at 189 ).
However, after allowing the State's petition for discretionary review in Floyd , the Supreme Court vacated the portion of this Court's opinion that granted the defendant a new trial pursuant to Ali . State v. Floyd , –––N.C. ––––, ––– S.E.2d. ––––, 2016 WL 7422403 (Dec. 21, 2016). Although the Supreme Court recognized that defense counsel had not posed the...
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