State v. Mitchell, COA18-29
| Decision Date | 06 November 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. COA18-29,COA18-29 |
| Citation | 262 N.C.App. 344,822 S.E.2d 51 |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Stanley Melvin MITCHELL |
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Special Deputy Attorney General Olga Vysotskaya de Brito, for the State.
Richard Croutharmel, Raleigh, for defendant.
Defendant Stanley Melvin Mitchell entered an Alford guilty plea to robbery with a dangerous weapon following the trial court's denial of his motions to suppress evidence obtained from a search of his home as well as evidence of his identification by the robbery victim. Pursuant to the terms of his plea agreement with the State, defendant appeals the denial of his two motions. We affirm.
On 17 January 2014, Officers Nicole Saine and Marvin Francisco of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) responded to a report of domestic violence at the home defendant shared with his girlfriend, Kristy Fink. In addition to reporting the domestic violence incident, the 9-1-1 caller had further alleged that Ms. Fink suspected defendant of being involved in the armed robbery of a Game Stop store a few days prior to the incident.
The officers knocked on the front door upon arriving at the home, and defendant and Ms. Fink eventually answered and exited the home together. Pursuant to CMPD policy, the officers then separated defendant and Ms. Fink for questioning. Officer Saine remained outside the home with defendant, while Officer Francisco entered the home with Ms. Fink after being authorized by her to do so.
Inside the home, Ms. Fink confirmed that she had been assaulted by defendant; she also corroborated the 9-1-1 caller's allegation by telling Officer Francisco that the incident began when she confronted defendant about the robbery. Ms. Fink then led Officer Francisco to the shared upstairs bedroom to view potentially incriminating evidence she had found prior to the incident, which included money and clothing that matched the description of the robbery suspect's clothing. When Officer Saine entered the home at defendant's request for warmer clothing while he waited outside, Ms. Fink gave her the same information she had given Officer Francisco. The officers subsequently obtained a search warrant and conducted a search of the home based on the information provided by Ms. Fink.
On 12 May 2014, a grand jury indicted defendant for one count of robbery with a dangerous weapon. The State alleged that on 15 January 2014, defendant robbed a Game Stop store and threatened to use a firearm against an employee, Robert Cintron, in the commission of the robbery. Although Mr. Cintron had failed to identify any alleged perpetrator in a photographic lineup shown to him two days after the robbery, he later identified defendant when shown a single still-frame photograph obtained from the store's surveillance video. Mr. Cintron then identified defendant as the perpetrator in the same photographic lineup shown to him two days after the robbery and again in four close-up, post-arrest photographs of defendant showing his neck tattoos.
Prior to trial, defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained from the search of his home "because valid consent was not obtained" for the officers’ initial entry into the home, and because the subsequent search warrant "was issued without probable cause and was invalid to authorize the search." Defendant also filed a motion to suppress both in-court and out-of-court identification by Mr. Cintron "of the defendant ... as the person that robbed the Game Stop, because the out[-]of[-]court identification was so unnecessarily suggestive as to create a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification and any in-court identification would not be independent in origin from the impermissible out-of-court identification." After a hearing in which Officer Saine, Officer Francisco, defendant, and Mr. Cintron testified, the trial court denied defendant's two motions in written orders entered 20 April 2017.
On 6 October 2017, defendant pled guilty to robbery with a dangerous weapon pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford , 400 U.S. 25, 91 S.Ct. 160, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970), as well as a plea agreement that preserved his right to appeal the trial court's denial of his motions to suppress. This appeal followed.
Our review of a trial court's denial of a motion to suppress is "strictly limited to determining whether the trial judge's underlying findings of fact are supported by competent evidence, in which event they are conclusively binding on appeal, and whether those factual findings in turn support the judge's ultimate conclusions of law." State v. Cooke , 306 N.C. 132, 134, 291 S.E.2d 618, 619 (1982) (citations omitted). We review the trial court's conclusions of law de novo . State v. Hughes , 353 N.C. 200, 208, 539 S.E.2d 625, 631 (2000).
Defendant first contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence discovered in the search of his home "because it was obtained in violation of his constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures." According to defendant, the officers’ initial entry into the home was illegal; thus, the fruits of the subsequent search should have been suppressed. We disagree.
Defendant relies primarily on the United States Supreme Court's holding in Georgia v. Randolph , 547 U.S. 103, 126 S.Ct. 1515, 164 L.Ed.2d 208 (2006), to support his argument that the officers were not justified in their initial entry into his home. In Randolph , officers asked a married couple for permission to search their marital residence; one spouse refused permission, while the other spouse consented to the search. Id. at 107, 126 S.Ct. at 1519. The non-consenting spouse was later charged with possession of cocaine based on evidence the officers obtained during their search. Id. at 107-08, 126 S.Ct. at 1519-20. At trial, the non-consenting spouse moved to suppress the evidence as a "product[ ] of a warrantless search of his house unauthorized by his wife's consent over his express refusal." Id . The trial court denied the defendant's motion to suppress, holding that the consenting spouse "had common authority to consent to the search." Id . The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that "one occupant may [not] give law enforcement effective consent to search shared premises, as against a co-tenant who is present and states a refusal to permit the search." Id. at 108, 126 S.Ct. at 1520.
In response to defendant's argument, the State contends that Randolph is inapposite here for the reasons set forth in Fernandez v. California , 571 U.S. 292, 134 S.Ct. 1126, 188 L.Ed.2d 25 (2014). The Supreme Court refined Randolph in Fernandez , emphasizing that Randolph ’s "holding was limited to situations in which the objecting occupant is physically present" and refusing to extend that holding "to the very different situation in [ Fernandez ], where consent was provided by an abused woman well after her male partner had been removed from the apartment they shared." Fernandez , 571 U.S. at 294, 134 S.Ct. at 1130. We likewise conclude that Randolph ’s holding does not extend to the facts of the instant case.
Here, the trial court made the following findings of fact in its order denying defendant's motion to suppress evidence obtained from the search of his home:
Based on its findings of fact, the trial court concluded as a matter of law:
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