State v. Laws

• Decision Date: 14 March 1991
• Docket Number: No. 653A85,653A85
• Citation: 402 S.E.2d 573,328 N.C. 550
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Wayne Alan LAWS. . Heard

Page 573

402 S.E.2d 573

328 N.C. 550

STATE of North Carolina v. Wayne Alan LAWS.

No. 653A85.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Heard March 14, 1991.

Decided April 3, 1991.

On remand by the United States Supreme Court, 494 U.S. 1022, 110 S.Ct. 1465, 108 L.Ed.2d 603 (1990), for further consideration in light of McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990). Heard on remand in the Supreme Court 14 March 1991.

Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen. by Joan Herre Byers, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for State.

Louis D. Bilionis, Asst. Professor of Law, Chapel Hill, for defendant-appellant.

WHICHARD, Justice.

Defendant was convicted of the first-degree murders of Ronnie Waddell and James Kepley and was sentenced to death. This Court found no error in the guilt or sentencing phases. State v. Laws, 325 N.C. 81, 381 S.E.2d 609 (1989).

Subsequently, the United States Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case to this Court for further consideration in light of McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990). Laws v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 1022, 110 S.Ct. 1465, 108 L.Ed.2d 603 (1990). On 13 November 1990 this Court ordered the parties to file supplemental briefs addressing the McKoy issue.

This Court's review of the record reveals, and the State concedes, that the jury here received the unanimity instruction found unconstitutional in McKoy. Specifically, the trial court instructed the jury to answer each mitigating circumstance "no" if it did not find the circumstance unanimously by a preponderance of the evidence. Thus, the sole issue is whether this is the "rare case in which a McKoy error could be deemed harmless." State v. McKoy, 327 N.C. 31, 44, 394 S.E.2d 426, 433 (1990). "The error ... is one of federal constitutional dimension, and the State has the burden to demonstrate its harmlessness beyond a reasonable doubt." Id.; N.C.G.S. § 15A1443(b) (1988). For the reasons stated below, we conclude that the State has carried this burden.

The State's evidence tended to show that defendant bludgeoned Ronnie Waddell and James Kepley to death with a claw hammer and left their bodies on a rural dirt road in Davidson County. Each victim suffered severe lacerations about the head and multiple skull fractures, including large shattered areas of the skull and round "punched out" holes in the skull about an inch in diameter. Pools of blood and pieces of flesh, hair, skull and brain matter surrounded the bodies.

Texford Watts testified that he and defendant had been drinking and had given the victims a ride. Defendant and both victims got out of the car to relieve themselves. Watts heard "licks being passed." He got out of the car and saw Kepley lying on the ground unconscious. Defendant was beating Waddell with his fists. When Watts told him to stop, defendant pushed Watts out of the way, opened the trunk with the keys he took out of the ignition, and removed a claw hammer. Using the hammer, defendant continued the beatings as the two men lay helpless on the ground.

Additional evidence supporting defendant's conviction and death sentence is summarized in our prior opinion--State v. Laws, 325 N.C. 81, 381 S.E.2d 609--and will not be repeated here.

The jury found two aggravating circumstances as to each murder: that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, and that the murder was part of a course of conduct which included commission of other crimes of violence against other persons. Laws, 325 N.C. at 95, 381 S.E.2d at 617. Submission of the especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance was "justified by the prolonged brutal attacks which were required to inflict Waddell's and Kepley's gruesome injuries and to produce the other gruesome evidence in this case." Id. at 115, 381 S.E.2d at 629. Defendant did not dispute submission of the course of conduct circumstance.

The trial court submitted five possible mitigating circumstances:

1) Wayne Alan Laws has not been previously convicted of a felony involving the use of or threatened use of violence to the person....

2) ... Wayne Alan Laws [has] been a good, dependable and responsible employee....

3) ... The capacity of Wayne Alan Laws to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was impaired [by alcohol]....

4) ... Wayne Alan Laws has helped to support his family....

5) ... Any other circumstances arising from the evidence....

The jury unanimously found circumstances (1) through (4) but rejected circumstance (5), the "catchall" circumstance. Defendant requested that several other statutory mitigating circumstances and one nonstatutory mitigating circumstances be submitted. We have determined that the trial court did not err in refusing to submit these circumstances, as there was no substantial evidence to support them. Id. at 110-13, 381 S.E.2d at 626-28.

Defendant asserts that the State has not met its burden of showing that the McKoy instruction was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. He contends that had the jury not been given the constitutionally defective instruction, it might have found the catchall mitigating circumstance and reached a different sentencing result. He suggests that the following evidence could support a finding of the catchall circumstance: (1) defendant cooperated with authorities by consenting to a search, signing a written waiver of his right to resist nontestimonial identification procedures, and waiving his Miranda rights; (2) there was some evidence that defendant and Texford Watts acted in concert; (3) defendant's premeditation and deliberation was brief; (4) the victims died quickly; (5) defendant did not attempt in his statements to deny blame for the killings; (6) defendant grew up in a poor, single-parent home; (7) defendant had a history of using drugs and drinking excessively; and (8) at work defendant was trustworthy, polite, and did not fight. Defendant also suggests that the jury might have found mitigation in his demeanor at trial.

In McKoy v. North Carolina, the United States Supreme Court held unconstitutional under the eighth and fourteenth amendments of the federal constitution jury instructions directing that, in making the final determination of whether death or life imprisonment is imposed, no juror may consider any circumstance in mitigation of the offense unless the jury unanimously concludes that the circumstance has been proved.

State v. Quesinberry, 328 N.C. 288, 289, 401 S.E.2d 632, 632 (1991) (citing McKoy, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990)). The concern expressed in the line of cases beginning with Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), and continuing with Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S.Ct 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988) and McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990), is that the sentencer be allowed to consider mitigating circumstances in the sentencing phase of a capital case so as to ensure the grounds on which the penalty was determined. See, e.g., Lockett, 438 U.S. at 604-05, 98 S.Ct. at 2964-65, 57 L.Ed.2d at 989-90; Mills, 486 U.S. at 376-78, 381, 108 S.Ct. at 1865-67, 1869, 100 L.Ed.2d at 394-96, 398; McKoy, 494 U.S. at ----, 110 S.Ct. at 1232-34, 108 L.Ed.2d at 380-81. The Court noted in Mills:

There is, of course, no extrinsic evidence of what the jury in this case actually thought. We have before us only the verdict form and the judge's instructions. Our reading of those parts of the record leads us to conclude that there is at least a substantial risk that the jury was misinformed.

Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. at 381, 108 S.Ct. at 1869, 100 L.Ed.2d at 398 (emphasis added).

Here, by contrast, unequivocal extrinsic evidence is present to establish "what the jury in this case actually thought." Unlike in Mills, the record presents the reviewing court with more than the verdict form and the judge's instructions. It details the following exchanges between the trial court, the jury foreman, and individual jurors concerning Issue II (mitigating circumstances) on the verdict form:

THE CLERK:...