State v. Smith

• Decision Date: 05 August 2014
• Docket Number: No. COA13–742–2.,COA13–742–2.
• Citation: 763 S.E.2d 926 (Table)
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Yosheika Charmaine SMITH.

763 S.E.2d 926 (Table)

STATE of North Carolina

v.Yosheika Charmaine SMITH.

No. COA13–742–2.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Aug. 5, 2014.

Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorneys General Thomas E. Kelly and Joseph L. Hyde, for the State.

Amanda S. Zimmer for Defendant.

STEPHENS, Judge.

Procedural History

This opinion is the second filed by this panel in Defendant Yosheika Charmaine Smith's appeal from the revocation of her probation. On 24 August 2009, Defendant was indicted for two counts of possession with intent to sell cocaine, and one count each of selling cocaine, delivering cocaine, and selling or delivering cocaine near a playground. On 24 February 2011, pursuant to a plea agreement with the State, Defendant entered an Alfordplea to those charges and to three counts of driving with a revoked license. Pursuant to the agreement, the State dismissed five other charges pending against Defendant, including speeding, failure to wear a seatbelt, and driving while license revoked. The trial court entered a consolidated judgment which imposed a suspended prison sentence of 29 to 44 months and placed Defendant on supervised probation for 24 months.¹

A violation report filed on 28 November 2012 alleged three violations of the conditions of Defendant's probation, each of which Defendant admitted at a March 2013 hearing. After finding that Defendant had “violated her supervised probation in each and every way cited[,]” on 7 March 2013, the trial court entered judgment revoking Defendant's probation and activating her suspended sentence. From that judgment, Defendant appealed, arguing that the trial court (1) lacked jurisdiction to revoke her probation for selling or delivering cocaine near a playground because the underlying indictment on that charge was fatally defective and (2) abused its discretion by revoking her probation. On 11 July 2013, Defendant filed a motion for appropriate relief (“MAR”) pursuant to N.C. Gen.Stat. § 15A–1415, again raising the indictment issue and asking that her sentence for the sale or delivery of cocaine near a playground be vacated. In a unanimous, unpublished opinion, we held that Defendant's attack on the validity of the underlying judgment against her was properly before us, citing this Court's decision in State v. Pennell,––– N.C.App. ––––, 746 S.E.2d 431 (2013), and further concluded that the challenged indictment was fatally flawed. State v. Smith,––– N.C.App. ––––, 757 S.E.2d 523 (2014) (unpublished), available at2014 N.C.App. LEXIS 140. As a result, we vacated both Defendant's original and probation revocation judgments and remanded for resentencing. Because the indictment issue was addressed and resolved in the opinion, we dismissed Defendant's MAR.

By order entered 12 June 2014, the North Carolina Supreme Court allowed the State's petition for discretionary review for the limited purpose of remanding to this Court for reconsideration in light of its decision in State v. Pennell,––– N.C. ––––, 758 S.E.2d –––– (June 12, 2014). By order of the Chief Judge entered 16 June 2014, this panel was reconvened to review the order of the Supreme Court. On the same date, Defendant filed in this Court a motion to reconsider her 11 July 2013 MAR. The State filed its response to Defendant's motion to reconsider her MAR on 26 June 2014.

Discussion

In Pennell,our Supreme Court held

that a defendant may not challenge the jurisdiction over the original conviction in an appeal from the order revoking his probation and activating his sentence. The proper procedure through which [a] defendant may challenge the facial validity of the original indictment is by filing a motion for appropriate relief under N.C. [Gen.Stat.] § 15A–1415(b) or petitioning for a writ of habeas corpus.

Id.at ––––, ––– S.E.2d at ––––. Defendant has filed a motion asking this Court to reconsider her MAR. In its response, the State contends that Defendant is essentially asking this Court to rehear her MAR and argues we lack the authority to do so because our Appellate Rules prohibit us from “entertain [ing] petitions for rehearing in criminal actions.” N.C.R.App. P. 31(g). We agree.

We are not, however, persuaded by the State's contention that, because the State only “sought review of this Court's opinion in Smith,contending this Court erred in relying on [the opinion of this Court in] Pennell[,] ... [and] did not seek review of this Court's disposition of Defendant's MAR[,]” our Supreme Court's remand of the case for reconsideration in light of Pennell“does not embrace the disposition of the MAR.” As noted supra,the issue addressed by our Supreme Court in Pennellwas “the proper procedure through which [a] defendant may challenge the facial validity of the original indictment” on appeal from the revocation of probation and activation of the original sentence. Pennell,––– N.C. at ––––, ––– S.E.2d at ––––. By filing an MAR along with her direct appeal, Defendant's appellate counsel presented this panel two routes by which to reach the merits of her challenge to the facial validity of the original indictment in her case, and we relied on the then-binding precedent of Pennellin selecting the proper route under which to proceed. Our Supreme Court has now clarified the law and directed us to reconsider this very point.

Further, as the State correctly notes, a panel of this Court may, upon motion of a party or upon its own motion, change its previous ruling “if the court determines that its former ruling was clearly erroneous.” N.C. Nat'l Bank v. Virginia Carolina Builders,307 N.C. 563, 567, 299 S.E.2d 629, 632 (1983). Under our Supreme Court's decision in Pennell,our previous decision in this matter, to address Defendant's argument on direct appeal rather than by consideration of the merits of her MAR, was clearly erroneous. Accordingly, we address the issue raised in Defendant's MAR, to wit, that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to revoke her probation and activate her sentence on the charge of selling or delivering cocaine near a playground because the indictment for that offense is fatally defective.

At the time Defendant was charged, certain drug offenses committed on “property that is a public park or within 1,000 feet of the boundary of real property that is a public park” constituted Class E felonies. N.C. Gen.Stat. § 90–95(e)(10) (2007). Defendant contends that the indictment on this charge “fails to allege [that] the sale or delivery took place in a public park and fails [to name] the individual to which the controlled substance was sold or delivered.” We agree that the indictment was fatally defective.

Superior court criminal jurisdiction cannot rest upon an invalid indictment. “[O]ur Constitution requires a bill of indictment, unless waived, for all criminal actions originating in the Superior Court, and a valid bill is necessary to vest the court with authority to determine the question of guilt or innocence.” State v. Bissette,250 N.C. 514, 515, 108 S.E.2d 858, 859 (1959). It is well settled that an indictment for the sale or delivery of a controlled substance must name the person to whom the defendant allegedly sold or delivered the narcotics or, in the alternative, allege that the name of the person is unknown. State v. Bennett,280 N.C. 167, 168, 185 S.E.2d 147, 148 (1971) ; Bissette,250 N.C. at 517, 108 S.E.2d at 861 (“Where a sale is prohibited, it is necessary, for a conviction, to allege in the bill of indictment the name of the person to whom the sale was made or that his name is unknown, unless some statute eliminates that requirement.”).

Here, Defendant was charged with selling or delivering cocaine near a playground as follows:

The [j]urors for the State upon their oath present that on or about the date of the offense shown and in the county named above, the defendant named above unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously did commit an offense under North Carolina General Statute 90–95(a)(1) of sell and deliver, a controlled substance [c]ocaine, within 1,000 feet of the real property boundary of Concord Chase Apartment's play ground [sic].

The indictment alleges neither the name of the person to whom Defendant allegedly sold cocaine nor that the name of the person is unknown. “Lacking either of these allegations, the indictment is fatally defective and cannot sustain the judgment in that case.” State v. Long,14...