State v. McCray, 204A84

• Decision Date: 08 January 1985
• Docket Number: No. 204A84,204A84
• Citation: 312 N.C. 519,324 S.E.2d 606
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Craig McCRAY.

Page 606

324 S.E.2d 606

312 N.C. 519

STATE of North Carolina v. Craig McCRAY.

No. 204A84.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Jan. 8, 1985.

Rufus L. Edmisten, Atty. Gen., by Asst. Atty. Gen., Thomas F. Moffitt, Raleigh, for the State.

James S. Livermon, Jr., Enfield, for defendant-appellant.

MEYER, Justice.

The defendant was charged with the murder of fellow prison inmate Alphonso Revell. At trial he admitted killing Revell but testified to the effect that he did so in self-defense. The majority of defendant's assignments of error are addressed to the trial court's rulings on the issue of self-defense. We find no reversible error and affirm the defendant's conviction and sentence.

I.

In its case-in-chief, the State presented the testimony of a number of prison employees and officials who witnessed various portions of the events just prior to Revell's death.

Gary Cook testified that he was employed by the North Carolina Department of Corrections at the Caledonia Prison Unit on 19 December 1982. At approximately 7:15 or 7:20 a.m., he had been on duty in Building Number One, where the intensive management and hospital wings are located. As he was on his way to Building Number Two, a dormitory building, Cook heard a guard's whistle summoning others for assistance.

Cook entered Building Number Two and ran down the corridor separating Cell Block "A" from Cell Block "B", until he reached a stairway approximately 45 feet away. Cook noticed blood on the hallway floor and wall in front of "B" Block. He climbed the stairway to the second floor where "E" and "F" Blocks are located. Following the trail of blood, Cook eventually went around "F" Block and discovered inmate Alphonso Revell lying at the bottom of a stairway against a locked door. Defendant McCray was standing beside a Department of Corrections officer. McCray had a great deal of blood covering his body and a bloody homemade prison knife (known as a "shank"), approximately 8 to 10 inches long, in his hand.

Cook and another officer removed McCray from the scene and strip-searched him. Cook observed that McCray did not have any cuts, wounds, or other physical damage to his body, although he observed a large amount of blood on McCray.

On rebuttal after defendant had testified on his own behalf, Cook testified that while searching McCray, he asked McCray what happened. McCray responded, "I was tired of this man f______ing with me; I meant to kill him."

Two other prison guards testified to the effect that defendant had chased Revell through a sizeable portion of Building Two and continued to chase Revell and stab him with a "shank" despite efforts to stop him.

Orlando Lewis testified that he was on the second floor of Building Two near "E" and "F" Blocks at approximately 7:15 to 7:20 a.m. While he was conducting a routine search of the barber shop, he observed inmate Revell running away from McCray on the floor below. McCray was chasing Revell, and Revell's shirt had blood around his lower front abdomen and back. McCray had a "shank" in his right hand. Lewis ran behind them and yelled for McCray to stop. McCray looked back at Lewis and continued to chase Revell. At this point, Lewis began to blow his whistle continuously.

Lewis then went to unlock a door to allow other officers access to the area. By this time, McCray and Revell were at the stairway. McCray was behind Revell and had his left arm wrapped around Revell, holding onto him tightly. McCray continuously stabbed Revell with the "shank," which he held in his right hand. Lewis again yelled to McCray to stop. According to Lewis, Revell yelled "help" three times, each time his voice getting lower. McCray continued to stab Revell. After other prison officers arrived and had McCray in custody, McCray turned and kicked Revell in the head as Revell lay at the base of the stairway.

Jeffrey C. Ritter testified that he was on duty in the dining hall of the first floor of Building Two on the morning in question. Ritter heard a whistle and ran to Door 353, which was locked. The door was located at the base of the stairway leading up to "E" and "F" Blocks (fifteen feet away). He saw McCray and Revell standing at the top of the stairway. McCray was holding Revell tightly with his left hand and was stabbing Revell with a homemade knife in his right hand. According to Ritter, Revell was yelling. "Stop stabbing me!" and "Help!" as he tried to pull away from McCray.

Ritter, who had been blowing his whistle the entire time, continued to watch as Revell and McCray started falling down the steps and landed on a flat area. There, Revell again tried to pull away from McCray, causing the two to fall further down the stairs. Ritter yelled at McCray to stop, but McCray did not respond. At the base of the steps, McCray straddled Revell and continued to stab him. Revell yelled, "Help!" "Stop!", very faintly as the stabbing proceeded. At this point, Ritter saw a hand grab McCray's right hand. McCray then shifted the knife to his left hand and lunged with the knife into Revell's chest. When McCray withdrew the blade, there was a gush of blood.

Another prison guard, Jasper Howard, testified that upon arriving at Door 353, he observed inmate Revell lying on his back in a pool of blood. Inmate Alonzo Willis was restraining McCray, who was still trying to get to Revell. In McCray's hand was a homemade prison knife. Other prison officers came down the stairway and shouted to McCray to drop the knife, which he did. Revell attempted to get up, but was unable to. Howard got a stretcher and helped to take Revell to the prison hospital. Howard did not see any weapons in the area, other than the knife wielded by McCray.

Grady Massey testified that he was a personal health assistant employed by the Department of Corrections at Caledonia Prison on December 19, 1982. At approximately 8:00 a.m., he visually examined Craig McCray to make sure that he was not physically injured in the affray. The visual examination revealed no cuts, bleeding, or injuries of any kind. McCray told Massey that he was not injured.

Halifax County Deputy Sheriff Charles E. Ward testified that he observed the dead body of Alphonso Revell at approximately 10:30 a.m. on December 19, 1982. He observed at least 13 stab wounds on Revell's back, side, and chest.

The final State's witness was Dr. John Allen Wolfe. Wolfe testified, as an expert forensic pathologist, about the autopsy he performed on the body of Alphonso Revell in the office of the Chief Medical Examiner at Chapel Hill on December 20, 1982. During the autopsy, Dr. Wolfe observed a total of 20 stab wounds, eight of which passed into the body and penetrated vital body structures resulting in a large amount of bleeding into Revell's chest and abdomen. Ten of the stab wounds were to the back. There were four major wounds to Revell's right side, all of which resulted in severe injuries. There was one stab wound to the right upper chest. The wounds varied in depth, with the deepest wounds penetrating five and one-quarter inches. In Dr. Wolfe's opinion, Alphonso Revell died as the result of severe blood loss from the multiple stab wounds he received.

On cross-examination, Dr. Wolfe testified that Revell was 23 years old, six feet one and a half inches tall and weighed 172 pounds.

The defendant presented the testimony of two witnesses. On direct examination, defendant, Craig McCray testified that he was 30 years old and had been in prison for a total of 12 years. At the time of the stabbing incident he was serving a sentence of 25 to 50 years imprisonment for seven counts of armed robbery. McCray testified that he did not know Alphonso Revell personally, but had seen him from time to time because they slept in the same dormitory.

The first actual contact that defendant had with Revell came in December 1982 and arose out of an incident concerning another inmate at Caledonia. That inmate had asked McCray to help protect him from Revell, defendant agreed to do so, and this agreement created animosity between Revell and the defendant. Shortly thereafter, Revell tried to provoke a fight with defendant and defendant "just played it on off" in an attempt to avoid a confrontation. According to McCray, within the prison community this behavior on his part was "the sign of weakness," which other inmates would be likely to take advantage of when the opportunity arose.

McCray testified further that Revell began to threaten him about what he was going to do. According to McCray, "... he [Revell] kept on making verbal statements about what he was going to do to me.... He would say that, I'm gonna get you--you know--I' gonna hound you too--you know--kept on making statements." McCray took Revell's statements as threats and concluded that at some point Revell would sneak up on him and hurt him. In the defendant's own words, the situation "kept on brewing and brewing." McCray testified that he went to Revell to talk to him but that Revell just looked at him and laughed. According to McCray, "He kept on making statements to other people about what he was going to do, then I'm saying if he don't stop, if he keeps on pushin' me, I'm going to have to do something sooner or later." In the days immediately preceding the killing, McCray and Revell eyed each other warily. McCray requested and received a transfer from "G" Block (where they both were housed) to "B" Block. However, Revell continued to harass McCray by watching him, by "circling" him, and by making inquiries about him in "B" Block. On the day before the stabbing, Revell, clasping a "shank" at his side, "circled" McCray and then walked away, stopped at a gate and pointed his finger at McCray. Later that day, Revell asked another inmate which bed McCray slept in and that inmate told him that McCray slept in the top bed. Revell then walked by and "circled" with his hand tucked in his coat pocket.

McCray testified that, "I knew he was trying to close in on me...