State v. See

• Decision Date: 06 September 2022
• Docket Number: COA22-9
• Citation: State v. See, 877 S.E.2d 715 (N.C. App. 2022)
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Yon Hwar SEE
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

877 S.E.2d 715

STATE of North Carolina

v.Yon Hwar SEE

No. COA22-9

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Filed September 6, 2022

Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Jonathan J. Evans, for the State.

Daniel M. Blau, for defendant-appellant.

ZACHARY, Judge.

¶ 1 Defendant Yon Hwar See appeals from a judgment entered upon a jury's verdicts finding her guilty of driving while impaired and felony death by vehicle. On appeal, Defendant challenges the trial court's denial of her request for discovery of the City-County Bureau of Identification laboratory's audit, non-conformity, and corrective-action records, as well as the admission of her blood test results into evidence. After careful review, we conclude that Defendant received a fair trial, free from error.

Background

¶ 2 While driving to work at approximately 6:00 a.m. on 23 June 2020, Defendant fatally struck a pedestrian, Patrick Simmons, with her vehicle. Mr. Simmons had been "walking on or near the fog line in the right lane" of the road when Defendant's car struck him from behind. The front windshield of Defendant's car was "smashed[,]" and the front bumper was dented. The portion of the road at which the collision occurred was "perfectly straight[,]" and driving conditions that morning were clear.

¶ 3 Shortly after the collision, Lindsey Childs noticed "what [she] initially assumed to be just some discarded clothes on the side of the road[,]" but which she determined upon closer examination to be the body of Mr. Simmons. Ms. Childs pulled over and approached Defendant's car "to make sure she was okay." Defendant "didn't make eye contact" with Ms. Childs and "didn't say anything" to her; she was "[j]ust sitting, staring straight forward" in her car. Ms. Childs then called 9-1-1.

¶ 4 At approximately 7:00 a.m., Raleigh Police Department Officer Lee Granger arrived at the scene of the collision to serve as the lead investigator. Several other law enforcement officers were already present. Officer Granger did not administer any standardized field sobriety tests to Defendant at any point during his investigation, because other officers informed him that "someone had already checked her out for alcohol, and there was no alcohol in this case."

¶ 5 Officer Daniel Egan, a member of the Raleigh Police Department's Crash Reconstruction Unit, responded to the scene at approximately 7:15 a.m. Other law enforcement officers told Officer Egan that Defendant had performed the standardized field sobriety tests, and that alcohol was not a factor. Consequently, Officer Egan did not administer any standardized field sobriety tests or otherwise inquire into Defendant's level of impairment during his investigation.

¶ 6 Officer Granger cited Defendant with misdemeanor death by vehicle. While he spoke with Defendant, Officer Granger was wearing a mask due to the COVID-19 pandemic; Defendant was also wearing a mask. Officer Granger informed Defendant of her implied consent rights and requested a sample of her blood for chemical analysis. Defendant consented, and at 8:43 a.m., a paramedic collected two vials of Defendant's blood at the scene.

¶ 7 Officer Granger then transported the "blood kit" containing Defendant's blood sample to the City-County Bureau of Identification ("CCBI") laboratory for testing. Dr. Richard Waggoner, employed in the CCBI's DWI Blood Chemistry Department, received Defendant's blood kit on 26 June 2020 and conducted the chemical analysis on 6 July 2020. His analysis revealed that on the morning of 23 June 2020, Defendant had a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.18 grams per 100 milliliters. Later, at trial, both Officers Granger and Egan admitted that they were surprised by the results of Defendant's blood analysis, and stated that they would have investigated the scene differently if they had known at the time that Defendant was impaired.

¶ 8 On 12 October 2020, a Wake County grand jury indicted Defendant for felony death by vehicle, driving while impaired, and failure to reduce speed. The next day, the State dismissed the charge of misdemeanor death by vehicle.

¶ 9 On 12 March 2021, Defendant filed a motion for voluntary discovery. On 22 March 2021, after consultation with her toxicology expert, Defendant filed a request for additional voluntary discovery and a motion to continue, seeking documents and records of the CCBI laboratory "relating to testing protocols, operating procedures and maintenance records." Specifically, Defendant sought, inter alia :

10. Findings of any and all internal laboratory audits from 6/26/2019 (year prior to sample submission to laboratory) to [22 March 2021].

11. Findings of any and all external laboratory audits from 6/26/2019 (year prior to sample submission to laboratory) to [22 March 2021].

12. Records of all corrective actions, non-conformities, and/or non-conforming events received at any time for all laboratory employees that were in custody of the blood sample.

¶ 10 Defendant's request for additional voluntary discovery came on for hearing on 12 April 2021 in Wake County Superior Court. Regarding requests 10, 11, and 12, Defendant contended that these materials were necessary to enable her expert to conduct a peer review of Dr. Waggoner's analysis of her blood sample, in that "[i]nternal and external audits are tools for peer review that are recognized as an accepted practice in the field of forensic toxicology." The State argued that the requests were "overbroad and irrelevant[,] ... amounting to nothing more than a fishing expedition." When the trial court asked Defendant's counsel whether he had "some reason to believe there may be [exculpatory] information" contained in the laboratory's audit, non-conformity, and corrective-action records, Defendant's counsel conceded that he was "not able to make a plausible showing" as to why he thought that the materials contained exculpatory evidence.

¶ 11 Dr. Waggoner testified at the hearing. He explained the auditing processes conducted at the CCBI laboratory:

Every year our accrediting body requires us to perform an internal audit of the entire laboratory process, including management and technical aspects of the entire process.

And then every two years an accrediting body will send auditors externally that will inspect the entire process of our laboratory and perform a total and complete audit.

Dr. Waggoner further explained that there are six separate sections of the CCBI, but that the auditors perform "one comprehensive audit of the entire laboratory." He opined that neither the audits nor any corrective-action records would be necessary to perform a peer review of the chemical analysis process, and that he would only consider such materials necessary "if [he] saw issues in the quality control documents."

¶ 12 On 14 April 2021, the trial court entered an order denying without prejudice Defendant's requests for the items described in numbers 10, 11, and 12, finding that these requests were "overly broad[.]" The court granted Defendant's requests for the remaining items that the State had not yet provided.

¶ 13 Defendant's case came on for trial on 3 May 2021 in Wake County Superior Court. At trial, Defendant's expert did not testify.

¶ 14 Dr. Waggoner testified at length as the State's expert, describing the processes and protocols he followed while conducting the blood analysis. Dr. Waggoner explained that he arrived at the 0.18 blood-alcohol concentration figure by averaging the results gathered from the two smaller samples he tested, which were derived from one of the vials of Defendant's blood in the blood kit that Officer Granger provided to the CCBI. He further explained that he purposefully spaced out the testing of Defendant's smaller samples in order to reduce the likelihood of any repeated error, and that he had the results reviewed by another analyst to ensure their accuracy. Dr. Waggoner also stated that "[i]f alcohol is contaminated with a yeast and it's not preserved and it's exposed to elevated temperatures, there is a possibility that some fermentation could occur. But if it's preserved, collected under aseptic conditions, and refrigerated, there's virtually no possibility of that occurring." He detailed the process by which he ensures proper calibration of the machines used for the blood analysis, and explained that there was a 99.73% probability that his calculations were within 0.012 grams per milliliter of the 0.18 figure he ultimately calculated.

¶ 15 At the close of the State's evidence, the trial court granted Defendant's motion to dismiss the charge of failure to reduce speed. On 7 May 2021, the jury returned verdicts finding Defendant guilty of the remaining charges. The trial court arrested judgment on the driving while impaired conviction, and sentenced Defendant to a mitigated sentence of 50 to 72 months in the custody of the North Carolina Division of Adult Correction for the felony death by vehicle conviction.

¶ 16 Defendant timely appealed.

Discussion

¶ 17 On appeal, Defendant argues that the trial court "erred by denying [her] discovery request[s] for audit, non-conformity, and corrective-action records from the CCBI laboratory, in violation of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-903 and Article I, Sections 19 and 23 of the North Carolina Constitution." Defendant also contends that the trial court plainly erred by admitting her blood test results into evidence because her consent to the blood draw was not knowing, voluntary, or intelligent.

I. Standard of Review

¶ 18 "We review a [trial court's] ruling on discovery matters for an abuse of discretion." State v. Pender , 218 N.C. App. 233, 240, 720 S.E.2d 836, 841, appeal dismissed and disc. review denied , 366 N.C. 233, 731 S.E.2d 414 (2012). "An abuse of discretion will be found where the ruling was so arbitrary that it cannot be said to be the result of a reasoned decision." Id. (citation omitted).

II. Requests for Voluntary Discovery

¶ 19 Defendant first contends that the trial court "should have...