State v. Payne

• Decision Date: 03 April 1991
• Docket Number: No. 254A88,254A88
• Citation: 328 N.C. 377,402 S.E.2d 582
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Randy Joe PAYNE.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Page 582

402 S.E.2d 582

328 N.C. 377

STATE of North Carolina v. Randy Joe PAYNE.

No. 254A88.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

April 3, 1991.

Appeal by defendant pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-27, from a judgment imposing a sentence of death entered by Long, J., at the 10 February 1988 Criminal Session of Superior Court, Davidson County. Defendant also gave notice of appeal from his conviction and sentence of life imprisonment for rape but failed to move to bypass the Court of Appeals; this Court, sua sponte, allowed the bypass. Heard in the Supreme Court 13 December 1989.

Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen., by Ralf F. Haskell, Special Deputy Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.

Benjamin G. Philpott and Franklin A. Bell, Lexington, for defendant-appellant.

EXUM, Chief Justice.

This appeal is from the second trial of this case. We ordered a new trial on defendant's first appeal in State v. Payne, 320 N.C. 138, 357 S.E.2d 612 (1987).

Defendant was tried and convicted on proper bills of indictment charging him with first degree murder (No. 83CRS16387) and first degree rape (No. 83CRS16747). We find no error in the guilt phase of defendant's trial. The decision in McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369, on remand, 327 N.C. 31, 394 S.E.2d 426 (1990), requires that we remand for a new sentencing hearing.

I.

The State's evidence at trial tended to show the following:

Between 10:15 and 10:30 a.m. on 9 November 1983, Frances Leonard, while working at the Davidson Animal Hospital in Lexington, N.C., looked out a window and noticed someone running from the rear door of Kathleen Weaver's house and into a barn located between the house and the hospital. Leonard described the person running as thin, about 5'4"' tall with "hippie type" hair blowing in the wind, wearing a light-colored tee shirt and faded pants, and carrying something green. Leonard then saw feet protruding from the barn door as if the person had fallen inside.

The Davidson County Sheriff's Department was contacted at 10:34 a.m. while Leonard and Dr. Gregory Hedrick watched the barn. Sgt. Robert Henderson arrived about four minutes later and was told that no one had been seen leaving the barn.

Henderson and Lt. Ken Owens entered the barn and found defendant Randy Payne lying down in an upstairs loft. Defendant was wearing a light yellow tee shirt underneath a brown pullover shirt with a green collar. He also was wearing blue jeans. Owens noticed what looked like bloodstains on defendant's pants leg.

Henderson entered the Weaver house and found Kathleen Weaver, age sixty-nine, dead in her bedroom. Weaver was lying face-down on the floor with her head between the wall and the bed. Her legs were spread apart, and the pajamas she was wearing were split open at the crotch. The bed linens were disarrayed and heavily stained with blood. Henderson saw bloodstains on the back door handle, the back door curtains, and the floor leading through the kitchen and hall to the bedroom.

Chief Deputy Jim Johnson arrived and noticed pry marks and damage to the back door and a broken safety chain. Deputy Johnson then explored the barn and found a hatchet and two white athletic socks, one of which was underneath a loose floorboard near the entrance to the barn. Blood and hair were on the hatchet; the sock under the floorboard was soaked with blood. These and items from the house and yard were gathered as evidence. When defendant was brought to jail, his clothes were taken by sheriff's deputies. Pursuant to a nontestimonial identification order, defendant surrendered head and pubic hair samples to the deputies.

Dr. Robert Anthony, a forensic pathologist, performed an autopsy. He noted wounds to the head, neck, and back of the victim, including one which penetrated the skull into the brain. The wounds were consistent with assault by a cleaver, machete, or hatchet. Dr. Anthony also noted several wounds on the left arm and both hands, which were likely defense wounds. Upon internal examination Dr. Anthony found the victim had received a blow to her abdomen that could have led to bleeding in her liver. The injuries and blood loss caused death, not immediately, but perhaps rapidly.

Dr. Anthony's autopsy also revealed that the victim's vagina had been penetrated, either shortly before her death or while her heart was still beating. He took samples of the victim's blood, head and pubic hair, and a vaginal swab, which he gave to the sheriff's department.

Forensic experts from the State Bureau of Investigation testified about their analyses of blood, fiber, and hair samples obtained from the victim, the victim's clothes, the defendant, the defendant's clothes, and the crime scene. Agent David Hedgecock testified that certain characteristics of blood samples from items taken from the barn were consistent with the characteristics of Weaver's blood groupings and these blood characteristics occurred in 1.3 percent of North Carolina's population. Agent John Bendure testified that a fiber taken from Weaver's backyard fence was consistent with fibers from defendant's brown pullover shirt; fiber on the hatchet found in the barn was consistent with fiber from the victim's pajamas; and a red fiber on defendant's brown pullover shirt was consistent with a red bathroom rug in the Weaver house. Agent Scott Worsham testified that one hair taken from Weaver's left hand was consistent with defendant's head hair; hairs taken from the hatchet were consistent with the victim's head hair; and the socks found in the barn loft and near the hatchet each yielded a hair consistent with the victim's head hair and a hair consistent with the victim's pubic hair.

Defendant's evidence tended to show as follows: Defendant's mother, Violet Payne, testified that defendant had been drinking on the evening of 8 November 1983, and that she saw him asleep in the barn loft at approximately 10 p.m. that night. She said he was wearing the same clothes on 8 November 1983 as were taken from him on 9 November 1983.

Jeffrey Smith, an emergency medical technician, testified that he arrived at the Weaver home at 10:55 a.m. on 9 November 1983 and examined Weaver. Smith observed no pulse and noted that her body was cold, her blood had pooled to the extremities and rigor mortis had started. Dr. Anthony, the pathologist, estimated the time of death could have been as short as one hour or as long as eight hours before Smith's arrival.

The jury returned verdicts on 9 February 1988 finding defendant guilty of first degree rape and first degree murder. The first degree murder verdict was based on both the theory of premeditation and deliberation and the felony murder rule. On 10 February 1988 defendant moved that his court-appointed counsel be dismissed before the capital sentencing proceeding began. The trial court allowed the motion but ordered counsel to stand by at defendant's disposal during the sentencing proceeding.

At the sentencing proceeding neither the State nor defendant offered evidence. The State suggested and the trial court submitted to the jury only one aggravating circumstance: the murder was committed while defendant was engaged in the commission of the felony of first degree rape. N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(5) (1988 & Cum.Supp.1990). The trial court, on its own motion, submitted two statutory mitigating circumstances: that defendant committed the murder "under the influence of mental or emotional disturbance" and that defendant's "capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired." N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(f)(2) and (6) (1988 & Cum.Supp.1990). The trial court also instructed the jury that it could consider any other circumstance arising from the evidence which it deemed to have mitigating value.

The jury found the aggravating circumstance, did not find any mitigating circumstance, and recommended that defendant be sentenced to death. Defendant was sentenced to death for first degree murder and a mandatory term of life imprisonment for first degree rape.

II.

A.

Defendant first contends that the trial court abused its discretion in restricting individual voir dire of jurors, allowing defense counsel to question in detail only those individual jurors who responded to questions of the whole panel and seemed to favor the death penalty. We find no error.

The trial court allowed defense counsel to ask each juror individually whether that juror had any moral or religious scruples in favor of the death penalty. After defense counsel questioned each juror a second time about the death penalty, the trial court ruled as follows:

The defense may examine the jurors with regard to any opinions they have which may predispose them to vote for the death penalty, but I am ruling that you may not ask a long series of questions to each of the twelve jurors, but you must ask the entire panel a question, and upon a positive response, you may pursue those positive responses.... It is simply more orderly, a more efficient, expedient way to examine the jurors.

The trial court's conduct of the jury selection process was well within its discretionary authority and did not violate N.C.G.S. § 15A-1214(c), which provides for the personal questioning of prospective jurors "individually concerning their fitness and competency to serve." The statute does not deprive the trial court of its authority to maintain appropriate supervision of the jury selection process by requiring counsel to address some generic questions to the entire jury panel, provided subsequent individual questioning is permitted when prompted by answers to the generic questions. State v. Phillips, 300 N.C. 678, 682, 268 S.E.2d 452, 455 (1980).

B.

Defendant next contends that because the trial court began the second day of jury selection before defendant was present in court, he is entitled to a new trial. We disagree.

At the beginning of the second day of jury...