State v. McQueen
| Decision Date | 06 June 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 92,92 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Roger Lee McQUEEN. |
Rufus L. Edmisten, Atty. Gen. by Donald W. Grimes, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
James R. Parish and Fred J. Williams, Asst. Public Defenders, Fayetteville, for defendant.
The defendant's first contention is that the court committed reversible error in the overruling of his motion to dismiss the indictments for the reason that the State failed to comply with the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act. G.S. 15A-761 et seq. Article III of this Act provides:
Article IV of the Act then provides a procedure whereby the appropriate officer of the jurisdiction in which the indictment is pending may obtain temporary custody of the prisoner for trial. Article V of the Act provides in paragraph (c):
"(c) If the appropriate authority shall refuse or fail to accept temporary custody of said person, or in the event that an action on the indictment * * * is not brought to trial within the period provided in Article III or Article IV hereof, the appropriate court of the jurisdiction where the indictment * * * has been pending shall enter an order dismissing the same with prejudice, and any detainer based thereon shall cease to be of any force or effect."
The record before us does not show compliance by the defendant with the procedures so outlined in the above quoted provisions of this Act. There is no showing by the defendant that he gave the specified notice and request to the warden of the Missouri State Prison or that the warden of that prison forwarded to the District Attorney of Cumberland County or to the Superior Court of Cumberland County "by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested," or otherwise, the specified certificate. All that the record before us shows is that when the detainers filed came to the attention of the prison officials of Missouri, they were brought by those officials to the attention of the defendant and, the defendant, himself, wrote a letter on 10 November 1972, which, he says, he mailed to the Clerk of the Superior Court of Cumberland County.
The defendant does not contend that he mailed to the District Attorney any such request for final disposition of the indictment. The evidence for the State strongly suggests that, if such request was in fact mailed to the Clerk of the Superior Court of Cumberland County, it was never received by the Clerk or in his office. In response to an inquiry subsequently directed to the Clerk of the Superior Court by a member of the Missouri Student Legal Aid Program concerning the possible dropping of the detainer, the then District Attorney promptly replied, "This office would not in any way be interested in dropping the detainers against Roger Lee McQueen."
The record indicates no further communication whatever from the defendant, or on his behalf, until 26 March 1975, when the Records Officer of the Missouri State Penitentiary wrote to the Sheriff of Cumberland County returning the warrants which had been filed with the original request for detainer. The then District Attorney promptly replied requesting the placing of a new detainer and enclosing certified copies of the warrants which had been issued against the defendant for the offenses here involved.
When the Cumberland County authorities requested temporary custody of the defendant from Missouri in September 1975, and dispatched officers to Missouri to bring him to North Carolina for trial, the defendant blocked that effort by obtaining from a Missouri court a restraining order. The record before us indicates that this litigation in the courts of Missouri, including appellate procedures related thereto, continued until the Cumberland County authorities were finally notified in June 1977 that they could pick up the defendant for trial. This they did promptly and he was tried and convicted at the 26 September 1977 Session of the Superior Court of Cumberland County.
Thus, the record before us indicates no violation by the Cumberland County authorities of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act. Consequently, there was no error in the entry of the order denying the motion of the defendant to dismiss the indictments on account of such alleged violation. State v. White, 270 N.C. 78, 153 S.E.2d 774 (1967).
The defendant's next contention is that he has been denied his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. The record before us shows that, at the time of the two murders in North Carolina, of which the defendant stands convicted, he was an escapee from the Missouri State Penitentiary to which he had been sentenced to imprisonment for life upon his conviction in that state for murder in the second degree. Immediately after the murders in this State, of which he stands convicted, the defendant and his companion fled from North Carolina and roamed at large throughout the United States until he was finally arrested in Pennsylvania on the charge of assault upon an officer of that state with intent to kill. The Cumberland County authorities promptly forwarded the appropriate papers for a detainer against the defendant to the Pennsylvania authorities. However, the defendant was returned to Missouri by Pennsylvania for the completion of the service of his Missouri sentence.
The record further shows that the State of Arkansas had previously filed with the Missouri or the Pennsylvania authorities its own request for a detainer of the defendant, which request the Missouri authorities gave priority over the North Carolina detainer. The first communication shown by the record before us to have been received by any of the Cumberland County authorities from Missouri, concerning the North Carolina detainer lodged against this defendant, was the letter from the defendant's Inmate Legal Aid, a member of the staff of the Missouri Department of Corrections. This letter stated, "(S)ince he (the defendant) is serving a life sentence, it is highly unlikely that the State of North Carolina will ever be able to obtain him for trial."
The Cumberland County authorities continued to insist upon the maintenance of the detainers filed by them with the Missouri authorities and, as soon as they were notified by the Missouri authorities that they could pick up the defendant, they endeavored to do so but were thwarted by court action instituted by him in Missouri.
We find in this record no evidence of wilful neglect or of abandonment of the cases against this defendant by the Cumberland County authorities.
The record before us shows that the Arkansas detainer, which the Missouri authorities gave priority over the North Carolina detainer, was based upon a charge of murder in that state. Although it is not clearly so shown in the record before us, this Arkansas charge, apparently, was based upon an alleged shooting in the head of a woman named Bendell Kelley, referred to in the above statement of facts. The Arkansas detainers appear to have been dropped in 1975 or 1976, for reasons not set forth in the record before us. When so advised by the Missouri prison authorities, the record before us indicates that the Cumberland County authorities promptly sought temporary custody of the defendant for trial and were prevented from trying him earlier by litigation instituted by the defendant in the courts of Missouri.
We find no error in the denial of the defendant's motion to dismiss the indictments against him for failure to accord him a speedy trial thereon.
The right to a speedy trial upon a criminal charge, guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the...
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...(1984) 311 N.C. 515, 319 S.E.2d 177, the North Carolina Supreme Court overruled its decision to the contrary in State v. McQueen (1978) 295 N.C. 96, 244 S.E.2d 414, held hypnotically refreshed testimony inadmissible for the reasons discussed in Shirley, and declared the new rule applicable ......
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