State v. Lyons

Decision Date06 December 2016
Docket NumberNo. COA 16-365,COA 16-365
Citation250 N.C.App. 698,793 S.E.2d 755
Parties STATE of North Carolina v. Devonte Shawmar LYONS
CourtNorth Carolina Court of Appeals

Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Sonya Calloway-Durham, for the State.

Glover and Petersen, P.A., Chapel Hill, by Ann B. Petersen and James R. Glover, for Defendant.

McGEE, Chief Judge.

Devonte Shawmar Lyons ("Defendant") appeals his convictions for first-degree murder under the felony murder rule, attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon, and conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon. Defendant contends he was prejudiced by the trial court's failure to exercise its discretion pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A–1233(a) to permit the jury to review certain witness testimony. We find no prejudicial error.

I. Background

The evidence at trial tended to show the following: Defendant, Aryka Roberts ("Roberts"), Rashad Schenck ("Schenck"), and Jessica Edwards ("Edwards") gathered at the residence of their mutual friend, Garrett Frederick ("Frederick"), in Kings Mountain around 6:30 p.m. on 13 March 2012. Roberts was Defendant's girlfriend. Schenck and Edwards were dating each other. The four of them sat in a sunroom where they smoked marijuana and listened to music. Roberts called a "chat line" used for "meet[ing] men [in the area] who want to talk or do other things." Roberts explained the chat line process at trial: "You just call and [record] a [voicemail] greeting and either [the men] can message you or you message them." Using the speakerphone, Roberts began playing messages men had left for her on the chat line.

One of the messages was from a man with a heavy foreign accent. Roberts decided to send him a message, and she and the man had a brief conversation over the phone making "small talk[ ]." Roberts told the man she lived in Kings Mountain and asked him to meet her there. Later, when asked why the man was interested in meeting her, Roberts testified "[she] told him for sex." Roberts and the caller exchanged phone numbers. After hanging up, Defendant and Roberts decided to "rob [the man with the accent] and get [his] money."

Defendant, Roberts, Schenck, and Edwards left Frederick's residence together around 9:00 p.m. and drove in a 1998 Toyota Camry ("the Camry") belonging to Roberts to Ebenezer, a small community outside Kings Mountain. During the ten-minute drive to Ebenezer, they discussed whether Roberts should meet the man at a hotel, but it was ultimately decided that Roberts should meet him at 206 Putnam Place, a vacant house where her father used to live. Along the way, they stopped at another home and picked up Schenck's cousin, Sheldon Thompson ("Thompson"). Roberts was "on and off [Defendant's cell phone]" with the man they intended to rob, giving him driving directions to Ebenezer from Charlotte. Roberts testified that

[t]he plan [they developed while on the way to Ebenezer] was for [Roberts] to go get in [the man's] car. [Edwards] was going to wait in [Roberts's] car ... at [a neighbor's] house. [Defendant, Schenck, and Thompson] were supposed to hide in the bushes, come up to the car, scare the man and only rob him, and we [were] all supposed to go back to my car and leave.

Roberts "didn't remember ... having a conversation about who [specifically] was going to take the money."

Schenck testified Defendant was supposed to get the money using a gun, and Schenck was supposed to "watch out [from the Camry] ... to make sure ... nothing happen[ed] to [Defendant]." Schenck also testified it "was not unusual for [him] to back up [Defendant] in a prostitution situation ... involving [Roberts]."

They next stopped at Schenck's grandmother's house in Ebenezer. Roberts and Schenck went inside and Defendant and Edwards remained in the Camry. The man from the chat line "was calling back and forth on [Defendant's] phone" and Edwards spoke to him while Roberts was inside Schenck's grandmother's house. When Schenck and Roberts returned to the car, Roberts drove "right down the road ... [about] a minute" and parked at the residence of her family friend, Wayne Bell ("Bell"). Roberts spoke over the phone to the man a final time to give him specific directions to 206 Putnam Place.

At Bell's house, Defendant, Roberts, Schenck and Thompson got out of the Camry and Edwards got into the front seat. Defendant, Roberts, Schenck and Thompson walked through Bell's backyard and approached the back of the house at 206 Putnam Place. Roberts went to the left of the house and the others went to the right. Roberts could see a white Cadillac ("the Cadillac") parked in the driveway of 206 Putnam Place. Roberts got in the Cadillac's passenger side and the driver introduced himself to her as Francis Munufie ("Munufie"). After talking to Munufie briefly, Roberts got out of the Cadillac and went back behind the house, where she spoke with Defendant, who was still with Schenck and Thompson. Roberts testified she was "really nervous and antsy" and told Defendant that Munufie "was ... touching [her] uncomfortably, and [she] wanted for it to be over." She asked "what the holdup was." Defendant told Roberts: "Shut up. We got this. We're going to do this. We're coming." Roberts had not seen Defendant with a weapon at that point.

Roberts returned to the Cadillac. Defendant came up to the driver's side door and "knocked on the window with a gun." Defendant told Munufie to get out of the Cadillac and tried to open the door, but it was locked. Roberts unlocked the door from inside. Roberts testified she immediately got out and ran to the back of 206 Putnam Place and then to the Camry parked in Bell's driveway. She heard four or five gunshots as she ran.

Schenck testified that Munufie opened the door and Defendant began "reach[ing] for [Munufie's] pockets" while Munufie was still sitting in the Cadillac. Defendant told Munufie to get out of the car and when Munufie did, "[Defendant] had the gun in [Munufie's] face telling him to give [Defendant] the money." Munufie motioned as if he was going to pull something out of his back pocket, but brought his hand up empty.

Defendant was still holding the gun in Munufie's face, demanding money, and Munufie "slapped [at] the gun." Schenck testified that after Munufie slapped the gun a third time, Defendant shot Munufie in his left upper arm. Schenck, Roberts, and Thompson then ran back to the Camry. As he was running, Schenck heard "multiple [gun] shots." Edwards testified that, while waiting in the Camry, she "heard five or six gunshots. And less than a minute later [Schenck, Thompson, and Roberts] were in the back seat [of the Camry] and [Roberts] told me to go."

According to Roberts, Defendant returned to the Camry last, and "jump[ed] in the front seat" as Edwards was pulling out of Bell's driveway. Edwards drove away, but "ran off the side of the road at one point because [she] was shook [up]." Edwards testified "[e]verybody was frantic. [Roberts] was like, ‘What happened? What happened? Did you kill him?’ And [Defendant] said, ‘I don't know. I shot him in the face.’ And that's—I think at that point I swerved off the road. [Defendant] said, ‘I'm sorry. I'm sorry.’ " Schenck testified Roberts was "screaming [at Defendant] ... [asking] did [Defendant] shoot the dude." According to Schenck, Defendant did not respond at first, but eventually said, "I had to do it." Roberts testified she "was ... crying really bad and ... [asking Defendant] ‘What happened? What happened?’ " and that Defendant simply responded, "I'm sorry."

Roberts switched seats with Edwards and began driving. She drove to the apartment of Schenck's cousin, Angelica Adams ("Adams"), in Gastonia. At Adams's apartment, the group sat in the living room smoking marijuana. According to Roberts, Defendant asked Adams for "[s]ome Comet or some bleach or some kind of stuff to clean with" and went to the bathroom. Around 3:00 a.m., Adams drove Edwards to her home in Galilee and drove Schenck and Thompson back to Ebenezer.

Roberts and Defendant got in the Camry parked outside Adams's apartment and talked for about twenty minutes. Roberts later told police that, after Adams and the others left, Roberts saw Defendant wrap a gun in a yellow t-shirt and hide it under some stairs at the apartment complex. Around 6:00 a.m., Defendant and Roberts went to Defendant's mother's apartment in Kings Mountain. They fell asleep briefly, but were awakened by police knocking on the door of the apartment. Two officers spoke with Roberts and Defendant separately. Roberts testified she "[b]asically gave [the officers] the runaround, a bunch of lies, jumbled up lies." Before leaving, the officers told Roberts they wanted to talk to her again. They also seized the Camry, saying it had been seen near 206 Putnam Place the previous night.

Deputy Jimmy Ellis ("Deputy Ellis") of the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office ("CCSO") testified he responded to a 911 call around 10:55 p.m. on 13 March 2012 reporting five or six gun shots fired near Putnam Place in Ebenezer. Deputy Ellis observed a white Cadillac parked in the driveway at 206 Putnam Place. The vehicle's lights were on, and there was music blaring loudly from inside. As Deputy Ellis approached the Cadillac, he saw the driver's side door was open and found a man, later identified as Francis Munufie, lying on his back with an apparent gunshot wound

to his head. Deputy Ellis radioed a request for EMS and backup deputies. A number of officers arrived and began canvassing the neighborhood. Investigators spoke with Bell, who informed them he had seen Roberts and several others in her Camry parked nearby earlier that evening. Police found four spent nine millimeter gun shell casings in the grass and driveway ten to fifteen feet from Munufie's body.1

A medical examiner performed an autopsy on Munufie's body on 14 March 2012, and determined Munufie suffered gunshot wounds

to the left side of his head, to his upper right, and "graze wounds" to the right...

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5 cases
  • State v. Cottrell
    • United States
    • North Carolina Court of Appeals
    • April 7, 2020
    ...An "[a]lleged violation of a statutory mandate presents a question of law, which we review de novo on appeal." State v. Lyons , 250 N.C. App. 698, 705, 793 S.E.2d 755, 761 (2016) (citation and quotation marks omitted). N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1345(e) provides that, at a revocation of probatio......
  • State v. Grappo
    • United States
    • North Carolina Court of Appeals
    • May 19, 2020
    ...aloud by the judge herself. Whether a trial court violated a statutory mandate is subject to de novo review. State v. Lyons , 250 N.C. App. 698, 705, 793 S.E.2d 755, 761 (2016) (citation omitted). To obtain relief for this type of error, Defendant must show that he was prejudiced. "Whether ......
  • State v. Revels, COA16-318
    • United States
    • North Carolina Court of Appeals
    • December 6, 2016
  • State v. Miles
    • United States
    • North Carolina Court of Appeals
    • January 4, 2022
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