State v. Turner, No. 587A88

• Decision Date: 06 December 1991
• Docket Number: No. 587A88
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Claude David TURNER, Jr.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Page 847

410 S.E.2d 847

330 N.C. 249

STATE of North Carolina v. Claude David TURNER, Jr.

No. 587A88.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Dec. 6, 1991.

Appeal of right by defendant pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-27(a) from a judgment imposing a sentence of death entered by Battle, J., at the 12 September 1988 Criminal Session of Superior Court, Cumberland County, upon a jury verdict finding defendant guilty of first-degree murder. Heard in the Supreme Court 11 September 1991.

Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen. by William N. Farrell, Jr., Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.

Malcolm Ray Hunter, Jr., Appellate Defender by Staples Hughes, Asst. Appellate Defender, Raleigh, for defendant-appellant.

WHICHARD, Justice.

Defendant was tried on an indictment charging him with the first-degree murder of Ronnie Seiger. The jury returned a verdict finding defendant guilty of first-degree murder upon the theory of premeditation and deliberation. Following a sentencing proceeding pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000, the jury recommended and the trial court imposed the death penalty. For the reasons discussed herein, we conclude that the guilt phase of defendant's trial was free from prejudicial error, but that he is entitled to a new capital sentencing proceeding under McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990).

The State presented evidence at trial tending to show that Ronnie Seiger (the victim) and Miles Nelson Raynor were seated in an automobile near Raynor's trailer when defendant walked up to the automobile with a sawed-off shotgun, demanded the payment of a debt from the victim, and then shot the victim in the head from close range. The victim died immediately.

Miles Raynor was the victim's cousin and the defendant's neighbor. Raynor testified that on 23 May 1987, he lived with his family in the same trailer park as defendant. On that day, he drove with the victim to a package store to make a purchase and then they went back to Raynor's trailer to pick up glasses and ice. As Raynor got back in the car with the glasses, he saw Mary Sikora walking through the trailer park in their direction. She stopped briefly at defendant's trailer, and then proceeded towards Raynor and the victim. Sikora walked up to the driver's side of the car and began speaking with Raynor. Defendant came out from his trailer and walked around the front of the car to the passenger side where the victim sat. Raynor testified that defendant then began "hollering" at the victim, "Where is my [expletive] money, man? I want my [expletive] ten dollars." The victim responded, "I haven't got it man. I'm broke right now." Immediately afterwards, according to Raynor, there was an explosion which caused the victim to slump over in the seat. The gunshot that killed the victim splattered Raynor and Mary Sikora with blood, skull fragments, and brain matter.

Mary Sikora testified that she knew defendant and the victim. She knew the victim had been at defendant's trailer prior to the shooting and that defendant had spoken about the victim on three or four occasions in the months preceding the killing. On these occasions defendant had said things like, "Heads are going to roll if I don't get my money" and "I'm going to get him, I'll get my money." Sikora also heard defendant tell the victim's cousin, Harlan Raynor, "Tell your cousin I want my ten dollars, ... because heads will roll if I don't get my money." Defendant told Sikora's boyfriend, David Adams, the same thing.

On 23 May 1987, Sikora went to the trailer park to help a friend wash a car. As she walked through the trailer park, she saw Miles Raynor getting into his car. She also passed by defendant's trailer, at which point defendant came to the edge of his trailer and asked her if the boy in the car with Raynor was the one who owed him ten dollars. Sikora testified that she could not tell at first who else was in the car, but when she saw that it was Ronnie Seiger, she nodded her head "yes" to defendant. Defendant followed her as she made her way to Raynor's car. According to Sikora, defendant went to the passenger side window of the car, where the victim sat, and said in a loud voice, "Boy, where is my ten dollars you owe me?" The victim patted his legs and said, "Man, I'm broke right now. I ain't got ten dollars." Defendant then said, "Boy, I want my ten dollars or I'm going to blow your [expletive] brains out." Defendant then "slapped" his hands together and there was a loud explosion that killed the victim and covered Sikora and Raynor with blood and brain tissue.

Nora Jean Towery conducted a yard sale in the trailer park on the day of the shooting. She saw the confrontation between defendant and the victim at the car, and she corroborated the account given by Miles Raynor and Mary Sikora.

Harlan Raynor, Miles' brother and a cousin of the victim, testified that defendant asked about the victim several times in the two weeks preceding the shooting. Defendant asked when the victim would be back around, and said, "Well, he'd better come around pretty soon or I'm going to start getting a little ill." Two days before the shooting, defendant told Harlan he was going to get even with the victim and that "some heads were going to roll" because the victim owed a debt to him. Tammy Horne, an acquaintance of Harlan Raynor, corroborated Harlan's account of the conversation.

David Adams testified that he knew both defendant and the victim. During several conversations within the three months prior to the shooting, defendant told Adams he would "get Ronnie" and he was "going to blow [the victim's] head off." Adams said defendant told him the source of the ten dollar debt from the victim was the victim's failure to pay defendant for some marijuana.

Defendant turned himself in to law enforcement officers within hours of the shooting. He also took them to the place where he had hidden the shotgun. The murder weapon was a single action, single barrel, sawed-off twelve gauge shotgun. In order to fire the gun, the hammer had to be cocked and the trigger had to be pulled back fully. The weapon had a trigger pull of two and one-half pounds, but its internal safety, or hammer block, did not function reliably. The normal trigger pull for such a gun is approximately seven pounds. On recross-examination, the State's expert testified that the weakness of the mainspring caused the gun to fire unreliably and was probably also the cause of the light trigger pull.

Defendant testified in his own behalf. He stated that he had met the victim approximately two months before the shooting when Harlan Raynor and the victim came to defendant's trailer to buy marijuana. The victim gave defendant half of the money for the marijuana and said he would owe the balance ($10.00). About one month after the marijuana transaction, defendant saw the victim at a nearby convenience store. Cursing, the victim came towards defendant's car; when defendant got out of the car, the two men fought. The victim was a large man and he struck defendant in the head, knocked him to the ground, and kicked him. Only after a friend intervened did defendant escape.

Defendant testified that the murder weapon actually belonged to another resident of the trailer park and that he was keeping the gun for the other resident in order to keep it away from the resident's alcoholic roommate. Defendant placed the gun in a compartment in a footstool in his living room; he did not know the gun was loaded, and he did not remove it before the day he shot the victim.

Defendant did not go to work on 23 May 1987; instead, he went fishing and stayed around his house. That afternoon defendant saw Miles Raynor drive up in his car. Defendant decided he would ask about the money the victim owed him. Defendant testified that he put the sawed-off shotgun in his pocket because he knew Miles Raynor and the victim could be violent. Defendant spoke briefly with Mary Sikora as she passed, then he walked over to Raynor's car. Defendant then "asked [the victim] if he had my money, and--I asked him if he had my ten dollars. And he said, no, he didn't. And I asked him if he had any intentions of paying me, and he said, yes, but he was broke right then." Defendant testified:

I thought that he had the money; and I reached in my back pocket and pulled the gun out, to scare him.... When I pulled the gun out, I may or may not have pulled the [hammer] back, I'm not quite sure, but ... it just happened so fast. All of a sudden the--I brought the gun up and the gun went off.

Because he was scared, defendant ran away from the scene. Defendant testified that he had not meant to kill the victim, that he knew that he had done wrong, and that he was sorry. Joseph Ivy and Danny Hedgepeth both testified that defendant told them shortly after the shooting that it was accidental.

The jury deliberated for thirteen minutes before returning a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder. In the sentencing phase, the State presented evidence supporting the aggravating circumstance that defendant "knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person by means of a weapon which would normally be hazardous to the lives of more than one person." The jury found this aggravating circumstance. Defendant presented substantial mitigating evidence from which the jury found twelve of the sixteen submitted mitigating circumstances.

By his first assignment of error defendant contends that the trial court improperly allowed the prosecuting attorney to impeach him during cross-examination with three purported prior convictions. Defendant asserts that the prior convictions were in fact void for lack of jurisdiction.

Prior to trial defendant moved to prohibit the State from using for any purpose the three convictions at issue--(1) a 1981 misdemeanor conviction for receiving stolen goods, (2) a 1985 conviction for assault with a deadly weapon, and (3) a 1985 worthless check...