State v. Lloyd

• Decision Date: 03 February 1988
• Docket Number: No. 577A85,577A85
• Citation: 321 N.C. 301,364 S.E.2d 316
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina, v. Oscar LLOYD.

Page 316

364 S.E.2d 316

321 N.C. 301

STATE of North Carolina, v. Oscar LLOYD.

No. 577A85.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Feb. 3, 1988.

Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen. by J. Michael Carpenter, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.

Ann B. Petersen, Chapel Hill, for defendant-appellant.

MITCHELL, Justice.

The defendant was convicted of the 12 March 1985 armed robbery and murder of Burton B. Cornwell, Jr. and sentenced to death and a term of fourteen years. He has brought forward assignments of error relative to the guilt-innocence phase and the sentencing phase of his trial. Having considered with care the entire record and each of the assignments, we find no prejudicial error in either phase of the defendant's trial. We decline to disturb the defendant's convictions or sentences.

The evidence presented by the State tended to show that at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 12 March 1985, Burton Cornwell went to work at Murphy Laundry and Dry Cleaning in Murphy, North Carolina. The laundry, located adjacent to a service station and directly across the street from Ivie Funeral Home, had been owned and operated by Cornwell for about thirty-five years. On Tuesdays, Cornwell worked alone at the laundry doing alterations and taking in and giving out laundry.

The defendant had been employed as a washer at Murphy Laundry for approximately four years. He worked at the laundry until 21 December 1984 when he left on a two-week vacation. When he returned to work six weeks later, Cornwell fired him.

[321 N.C. 305] Pat Tagliarini testified that she went into Murphy Laundry and spoke briefly with Cornwell at 8:14 a.m. on 12 March 1985, the morning of Cornwell's murder. Cornwell was the only person in the laundry at that time.

At approximately 8:15 a.m. Marvin Cook, an employee of Ivie's Funeral Home, observed

the defendant enter the laundry. He testified that the defendant came back outside at about 8:30 a.m. "hollering and motioning" for Cook to come over to the laundry. Cook ran across the street and, upon entering the laundry, saw Cornwell lying on the floor behind the service counter. Cook described the victim as lying on his back with "blood from one end to the other."

Officer Williford Dills of the Murphy Police Department testified that on 12 March 1985 when he arrived at the scene, he observed the cash register turned from its normal position on the counter. The drawer was open and several coins were on the floor. Officer Dills positively identified a knife found at the murder scene as the defendant's. He stated that the knife had hair and blood on it when he seized it at the scene.

Murphy Police Chief C.C. Howard testified that when he entered the laundry on 12 March 1985, he observed that the gumball machine was broken, the cash register was turned from its normal position, the cash drawer was open and coins and straight pins were all over the floor. Chief Howard further testified that there were bloody shoe prints on the laundry floor. These shoe prints had a pattern described by several witnesses as being a "waffle" or "grid" pattern.

Highway Patrolman Tom Cheek, who transported the defendant from Murphy Laundry to the jail, testified that the defendant's tennis shoes were covered with blood which had "seeped or soaked into the material part of the shoes." Cheek recovered from the defendant's right front pants pocket a fifty-dollar bill folded in a distinct way and stained with blood.

Sharon Donahue was at the service station adjacent to Murphy Laundry when she saw Grier Ivie and Marvin Cook running across the street from the funeral home to the laundry. Donahue went into the laundry and observed the victim lying on the floor. While she was in the laundry, she heard the defendant yelling, [321 N.C. 306] "Oh, shit. Oh, no. No, No." After Donahue checked the victim's pulse and found none, the defendant exclaimed, "You shouldn't have done it." Donahue further recalled that she had seen the defendant in the laundry on 2 March 1985, the day before her husband's birthday. She testified that as she walked by the laundry on that day, she heard Cornwell yelling at the defendant in an angry tone of voice and pointing to the door.

On the day following the murder, Officer Dills and Chief Howard made a more detailed search of the premises and discovered the victim's wallet hidden in a washer on the premises. The wallet contained, among other things, two fifty-dollar bills folded in the same distinct way as the fifty-dollar bill recovered from the defendant.

Kenneth Cope, an agent for the State Bureau of Investigation, searched the premises on 13 March 1985 and discovered a letter from the Employment Security Commission among other business papers on the victim's desk. This letter was admitted into evidence over the defendant's objection.

A pathologist's report indicated that Cornwell had suffered thirty-six wounds on his body. These wounds included both sharp-edged lacerations, suggesting stabs by a knife, and jagged lacerations, suggesting blows by a blunt object. Specifically, Cornwell's death was caused by a blunt trauma to the head which caused his brain to swell and hemorrhage. In the pathologist's opinion, the victim lived a minimum of five to ten minutes after sustaining the most significant blows. The pathologist further opined that several of the blunt force wounds to the head were consistent with being kicked about the head while in a prone position.

An expert in the field of footwear impressions testified that in his opinion the defendant's shoes could have made the impression on the victim's forehead. He also opined that the defendant's shoes were the same shoes that made bloody shoe prints observed all over the laundry floor.

I. GUILT-INNOCENCE DETERMINATION PHASE

In the defendant's first assignment of error he contends that the trial court

abused its discretion during jury selection by prohibiting[321 N.C. 307] defense counsel from inquiring into prospective jurors' religious denominations and the extent of their participation in church activities. The trial court is vested with broad discretion in controlling the extent and manner of questioning of prospective jurors, and its decisions in this regard will not be disturbed absent a showing of an abuse of discretion. State v. Brown, 315 N.C. 40, 55, 337 S.E.2d 808, 820 (1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1165, 106 S.Ct. 2293, 90 L.Ed.2d 733 (1986). In the present case, we conclude that the trial court properly prohibited the defense counsel's inquiry into the religious affiliations and practices of prospective jurors

Even though the State and the defendant are entitled to inquire into a prospective juror's beliefs and attitudes, neither has the right to delve without restraint into all matters concerning potential jurors' private lives. There are numerous questions wholly unrelated to specific religious affiliations and practices which may be asked to determine a potential juror's attitudes and biases. In the present case the defendant was afforded broad latitude during jury selection. For example, he was able to determine jurors' attitudes about the death penalty by asking, inter alia, whether they had "any conscientious, moral or religious objections to the infliction of the death penalty." By asking such questions the defendant was able to determine potential jurors' beliefs about capital punishment without intrusive delving into their private religious beliefs. Since the defendant was able to elicit the information necessary to select competent, fair and impartial jurors without questioning potential jurors' about their personal religious beliefs and affiliations, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in limiting voir dire questioning of prospective jurors as to their religious affiliations. Cf. State v. Huffstetler, 312 N.C. 92, 322 S.E.2d 110 (1984) (not error to prevent defendant from asking prospective jurors about views of their church leaders), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1009, 105 S.Ct. 1877, 85 L.Ed.2d 169 (1985).

We also note that the defendant in the present case failed to exhaust his peremptory challenges. The record indicates that the defendant was not forced to accept any juror objectionable to him, since he still had two peremptory challenges remaining after the last juror was accepted. The defendant has, therefore, failed to show any possible prejudice resulting from the trial court's rulings regarding jury selection and may not now be heard to complain. [321 N.C. 308] See, e.g., State v. Wilson, 313 N.C. 516, 524-25, 330 S.E.2d 450, 457 (1985). This assignment of error is overruled.

The defendant by his next assignment of error contends that two of the jurors challenged for cause due to their opposition to capital punishment may have been improperly dismissed in violation of the standard established in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968). In Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S.Ct. 844, 83 L.Ed.2d 841 (1985), the Supreme Court clarified Witherspoon and held that the proper standard for determining whether a prospective juror may be excluded for cause due to views concerning the death penalty is "whether the juror's views 'would prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.' " 469 U.S. at 433, 105 S.Ct. at 857, 83 L.Ed.2d at 851-52 (quoting Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38, 45, 100 S.Ct. 2521, 2526, 65 L.Ed.2d 581, 589 (1980)). We have carefully examined the voir dire testimony of each of the two jurors whom the defendant contends were improperly excluded. Their answers to the prosecutor's questions clearly disclosed that they could not follow the law or instructions of the trial court, if to do so would result in a death sentence. Therefore, they were properly excluded under the standard set out in Witt. This assignment of error is without merit and is overruled.

The defendant next contends...