State v. Spangler, 417A84
| Decision Date | 05 September 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 417A84,417A84 |
| Citation | 333 S.E.2d 722,314 N.C. 374 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Jeanine Lynn SPANGLER. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Rufus L. Edmisten, Atty. Gen. by Thomas F. Moffitt, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.
Cameron S. Weeks, Tarboro, for defendant-appellant.
Defendant raises eleven assignments of error on her appeal to this Court. We conclude that defendant received a fair trial free from prejudicial error. Therefore, each of defendant's arguments on appeal is rejected.
The evidence introduced during a jury trial tended to show that on the afternoon of 26 October 1983, defendant took her ten-month-old son, Jacob Harley Warner, to the emergency room of Nash General Hospital. She placed the baby in a nurse's arms and said, "I think my baby died yesterday, but I think he took a breath today." It was determined that the baby had been dead for some time. The baby's body was stiff and was bruised in various places.
At the hospital, defendant told medical personnel "that she had occasionally slapped the child and had slapped the baby around because the baby made her nervous; that they were very poor, that they hadn't had a lot of food to eat and that the baby was fussing and crying and that she had never hit the child with her fist and ... that the bruises that were on the child then were not places that she had hit the child but places where the blood had been pooled after it died." Certain witnesses for the State testified that defendant showed very little emotion, seemed very nervous, but not remorseful, after the incident.
Defendant had been living in a trailer at the Wesleyan Circle Trailer Park near Whitakers since approximately July, 1983 and prior to that time had lived in Daytona Beach, Florida, with the child's father, Joseph Warner. Defendant consistently denied mistreatment of the child and explained that she had not brought the child to the hospital earlier because of the previous experience when she had been suspected of child neglect or abuse when the child had been scalded.
An autopsy revealed multiple injuries on the body, abrasions or scraping wounds over the back and top of the head, bruises or contusion abrasions on the forehead and various other bruises and fractures to the body, particularly the skull. The child also had internal injuries. Defendant testified that the baby had been attempting to walk and had pulled up on the couch, taken a couple of steps from the couch, then fell and hit its head at approximately 10:30 a.m. on 25 October 1983, the day before she took the baby to the hospital.
An expert pathologist who performed the autopsy concluded that death was caused by the skull fracture and hemorrhage into the skull and injury to the brain. It was his opinion that the fracture of the skull was caused by a blunt force injury to the back of the head, which occurred just prior to death. Furthermore, the pathologist testified that in his opinion the injury that caused the child's death could not have been caused by a child of Jacob Warner's size and weight falling to the floor and striking his head because "[t]he head would have had to have been in a fixed position and an object would have had to hit it, at least the head would have had to be affixed with regard to the body."
Paulette Gibbs, a fellow inmate of defendant, testified that defendant first denied being responsible for her son's death and told her it was all a mistake and that she would be released as soon as the autopsy report came in. Defendant made statements to Ms. Gibbs, such as, "Since when is it against the law to beat your own child?" The witness described defendant's conduct in the jail as being odd in various ways. She testified that later defendant told her of books she had read that described the three vulnerable spots in a person's skull that were susceptible to skull fracture and also how you could lay a body a certain way, so that blood would flow in the direction away from the wound to disguise the way a person had been killed. Furthermore, Ms. Gibbs testified that defendant confessed to her that she had killed her child by taking the child's head in her hands and hitting it on the side of the bathtub and that she only had to do it twice because she knew exactly where to do it this time.
Testimony further revealed that defendant had been hospitalized several years earlier in Florida. Defendant testified that she had been suffering catatonic withdrawal and received electric shock treatment as well as continued medication afterward. Defendant distrusted medical doctors and frustrated her attorney's attempts to obtain her medical records in an effort to assist in her defense of insanity. A social worker, a medical doctor, and a psychotherapist all testified that they were of the opinion that defendant did not on 25 October 1983 have sufficient mental capacity to be able to distinguish between right and wrong. Also, defendant's father and mother testified about her background and history, expressing essentially the same opinion regarding her mental incapacity at the time of the baby's death. A psychiatrist for the State testified on rebuttal that in her opinion defendant did have the ability to distinguish right from wrong with reference to this particular offense.
After the judge gave his charge, the jury deliberated for fifteen minutes and returned with a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder. After being convicted, defendant agreed to an examination by a psychiatrist, who testified that defendant was and had been, a schizophrenic and that on 25 October 1983 she could not have had the capacity to appreciate the criminality of her conduct. Thereafter, the jury recommended that defendant be sentenced to life imprisonment. Defendant gave timely notice of appeal to this Court pursuant to G.S. 7A-27 after the judge sentenced her to life imprisonment.
This Court will resolve each of the eleven assignments of error raised by defendant. First, defendant argues that the trial court committed reversible error in placing the burden of proof regarding the insanity defense on defendant. Certainly, the thrust of defendant's defense was that she was insane when she killed her ten-month-old child. Defendant acknowledges the rule in this State, which places the burden of proof on the defendant to establish the affirmative defense of insanity. State v. Wetmore, 298 N.C. 743, 259 S.E.2d 870 (1979); upheld in State v. Heptinstall, 309 N.C. 231, 306 S.E.2d 109 (1983). However, defendant argues that, considering the circumstances of this case, the State should be required to prove that defendant was sane at the time of the crime.
This Court recognizes that defendant's attorney was frustrated in his efforts to obtain the optimum evidence necessary to the insanity defense. This reason alone is not sufficiently compelling to persuade us to change a rule that has been espoused by this Court as the correct rule. This assignment of error is therefore overruled.
Next, defendant argues that the trial judge committed error by giving instructions to the jury that could have led them to believe that they were required to find defendant guilty of some criminal charge and could not acquit defendant. This assignment of error stems from the following remarks made by the court:
In this case the defendant, Ms. Spangler, is charged as a result of an incident that allegedly occurred on October 25, 1983 with first-degree murder, which allegedly results from the death of one Jacob Harley Warner.
Now, to this charge and as to any other charge about which you will be instructed, the defendant has entered a plea of not guilty and says that she is not guilty. Furthermore, the defendant has raised the defense of insanity and says that she is not guilty also by reason of insanity.
Now, as I said, the defendant in this case is accused of murder in the first degree. The fact that she has been charged with this offense is no evidence of her guilt and the State must prove that she is guilty and the State must do so beyond a reasonable doubt, which I later shall define for you.
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(However, prior to that time [referring to a G.S. § 15A-2000 sentencing hearing] the only concern of the trial jury is to determine whether the defendant is guilty of the crime charged, or of any lesser included offenses about which you will be instructed.) DEFENDANT EXCEPTS.
Defendant argues that the portions of the foregoing remarks to which defendant excepts "could well have given the prospective jurors the impression that they would be required to find defendant guilty of first degree murder or some lesser included offense." Defendant cites no authority to support this particular argument. Defense counsel failed to object to this portion of the judge's introductory remarks. Employing a plain error analysis, we do not view such remarks, when read in context, to be prejudicial to defendant. Defendant contends that the trial judge should have charged, "... the only concern of the trial jury is to determine whether or not the defendant is guilty ...," as opposed to what he actually said. When viewed contextually, the judge's remarks conveyed to the jury venire what the jury's appropriate role in the trial was to be. We do not agree with defendant's contention that the judge conveyed to the jury that their job was to convict defendant, there being no other alternative available to them. This assignment of error is rejected.
Defendant further argues that the trial court committed reversible error by excusing a prospective juror for cause solely because of his unequivocal opposition to capital punishment, in violation of Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968). In the recent case of State v. Jenkins, 311 N.C. 194, 317 S.E.2d 345 (1984), this Court rejected this argument and explained as follows:
Defendant next contends that the trial judge erred by...
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