State v. Vance

• Decision Date: 02 May 1991
• Docket Number: No. 202PA90,202PA90
• Citation: 328 N.C. 613,403 S.E.2d 495
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Alfred Ray VANCE.

Page 495

403 S.E.2d 495

328 N.C. 613

STATE of North Carolina v. Alfred Ray VANCE.

No. 202PA90.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

May 2, 1991.

Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen. by Linda Anne Morris, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for State.

Malcolm Ray Hunter, Jr., Appellate Defender, and Constance Everhart, Asst. Appellate Defender, Raleigh, for defendant-appellant.

MITCHELL, Justice.

The central issue before this Court on appeal is whether the trial court erred in denying the defendant's motion to dismiss the charge upon which he was tried for second degree murder; his motion to dismiss was based on the common law year and a day rule. Although today we prospectively abrogate the year and a day rule, we conclude that the trial court erred and that the decision of the Court of Appeals finding no error must be reversed. We further conclude that the judgment against the defendant for second degree murder must be vacated and this case remanded for judgment as upon a verdict for involuntary manslaughter.

The State's evidence tended to show that the defendant drank beer with friends at a Winston-Salem bar from 5:00 p.m. until shortly before midnight on 10 March 1987. During that period, the defendant was seen drinking at least four beers. He then drove with a friend from the bar to the friend's home, approximately a mile and a half from the bar. The defendant started to take his other passenger, Bobby Caddell, home.

Shortly after midnight, Lanny Lee Bradley and his wife were traveling west on Union Cross Road in a pickup truck. The car driven by the defendant crossed over into the oncoming lane of traffic, where the car struck the Bradleys with such force that it split in half and its front section traveled 170 feet after impact. Union Cross Road is a rural, paved highway running east and west with a posted speed limit of fifty-five miles per hour.

Bobby Caddell's body was found lying in the westbound lane of the road. Mrs. Bradley was buried under wreckage from the collision, and she was barely breathing. She was later pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Lanny Lee Bradley was pinned in his truck, having difficulty breathing. He was given emergency treatment at the accident scene and transported to the hospital.

Deputy L.E. Gordon of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department arrived shortly after the collision. He went to the front section of the defendant's car, which was overturned with the defendant inside. Deputy Gordon removed the defendant from the car. The defendant had sustained injuries to his head and knees and had a strong smell of alcohol on his breath. Gordon then went to determine if he could assist the Bradleys. When Gordon turned around, the defendant was gone.

Meanwhile, the defendant had hitched a ride from two individuals who detected a strong odor of alcohol on his breath. They took him to his mother's home. Shortly after 1:00 a.m., the defendant was taken from his mother's home by ambulance to the hospital. When questioned about what had caused his injuries, the defendant stated, "I guess because I had a wreck." The results of a test performed on blood drawn from the defendant at 2:29 a.m. showed an alcohol content of 0.104 grams per 100 milliliters of blood.

Lanny Lee Bradley experienced a severe head injury as a result of the collision with the defendant. In addition to a tube placed in his windpipe to enable him to breathe, he received intravenous fluids to raise his blood pressure. A CAT scan, done at the hospital, showed severe swelling of his brain.

Lanny Lee Bradley remained totally unconscious in the intensive care neurological ward for four months, completely dependent upon life support systems. He was moved from intensive care when his vital signs stabilized. Occasionally, he would open his eyes and appear to look around, but he never regained consciousness beyond that point. While hospitalized, he was connected to a ventilator for oxygen and was given fluid intravenously. He was also given medication to prevent any seizures due to the head injury. On 3 May 1988, he died from respiratory failure and bacterial pneumonia--both of which related to his head injury.

At trial, the jury returned a verdict finding the defendant guilty of the second degree murder of Lanny Lee Bradley. The trial court entered judgment on that verdict and sentenced the defendant to a twenty-year term of imprisonment.

On appeal to the Court of Appeals, the defendant contended, inter alia, that the murder charge against him should have been dismissed under the common law "year and a day" rule because uncontroverted evidence showed that Bradley had died fourteen months after the collision. The Court of Appeals rejected the defendant's contention and held that his trial was free from prejudicial error. On 27 July 1990, this Court allowed the defendant's petition for discretionary review, limited to the issue of the applicability of the year and a day rule.

Before addressing the defendant's assignment of error, a review of the history of the "year and a day" rule is helpful. Our General Assembly has declared that so much of the common law as has not been abrogated or repealed by statute or become obsolete is in full force and effect in this state. N.C.G.S. § 4-1 (1986); see, e.g., State v. Buckom, 328 N.C. 313, 401 S.E.2d 362 (1991); Martin v. Thornburg, 320 N.C. 533, 359 S.E.2d 472 (1987); McMichael v. Proctor, 243 N.C. 479, 91 S.E.2d 231 (1956); State v. Hampton, 210 N.C. 283, 186 S.E. 251 (1936). The "common law" referred to in N.C.G.S. § 4-1 is the common law of England as of the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Buckom, 328 N.C. 313, 401 S.E.2d 362; Hall v. Post, 323 N.C. 259, 372 S.E.2d 711 (1988); Steelman v. City of New Bern, 279 N.C. 589, 184 S.E.2d 239 (1971).

Under the common law of England, a killing was not murder unless the death of the victim occurred within a year and a day of the act inflicting injury. 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *197; see H. Broom, Commentaries on the Common Law * 935 (1856). Otherwise, the loss of life would be attributed to natural causes rather than the distant act inflicting injury. R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law 46 (3d ed. 1982). This requirement envisioned that the death must be shown to be "sufficiently connected with the act." 3 W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 315 (3d ed. 1923).

Our research discloses that the origins of the rule are generally traced to the thirteenth century. The statute which may have led to the evolution of the rule reads as follows:

An Appeal of Murther.... (4) It is provided also, that no Appeal shall be abated so soon as they have been heretofore; but if the appellor declare the Deed, the Year, the Day, the Hour, the Time of the King, and the Town where the Deed was done, and with what Weapon he was slain, the Appeal shall stand in Effect, (5) and shall not be abated for Default of fresh Suit, if the Party shall sue within the Year and the Day after the Deed done.

Statutes of Gloucester, 6 Edw. I, c. IX (1278); see State v. Hefler, 310 N.C. 135, 310 S.E.2d 310 (1984). The year and a day time period which found its way into the criminal law may have been "connected with the fact that it was the length of time within which the relatives" of the victim could bring the "appeal of death" they were entitled to bring as private citizens. 3 W. Holdsworth, supra at 315; see State v. Hefler, 310 N.C. 135, 310 S.E.2d 310 (1984). But cf. United States v. Jackson, 528 A.2d 1211 (D.C.App.1987) ("Since the origins and purposes of the rule are obscure, we cannot say with certainty why the rule came into existence."). The appeal of death or "appeal of Murther" recognized by the ancient common law and referred to in the Statutes of Gloucester "was a private and vindictive process by an interested party ... which grew out of the old Germanic custom of 'weregild', or compensation for the death." Commonwealth v. Ladd, 402 Pa. 164, 167, 166 A.2d 501, 503 (1960). It is notable that appeals of death, rather than prosecutions for murder, were contemplated under the Statutes of Gloucester. Id. It appears that only Coke, among the commentators on the common law of England, states that "the rule is said to run from the death both in public prosecutions for murder and in private appeals of death." Id. at 167-68, 166 A.2d at 503. As applied in American courts, however, the year and a day rule generally has been viewed to have applied in public prosecutions and to have "operated like an ordinary statute of limitations." Commonwealth v. Lewis, 381 Mass. 411, 413, 409 N.E.2d 771, 772 (1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 929, 101 S.Ct. 1386, 67 L.Ed.2d 360 (1981). But see People v. Mudd, 154 Ill.App.3d 808, 812, 107 Ill.Dec. 716, 719, 507 N.E.2d 869, 872 (1987) ("[T]he 'year and a day rule' did not operate in the nature of a statute of limitations barring prosecution. So long as the death occurred within the specified time frame, it was then presumed the blow or injury caused the death for purposes of a homicide prosecution."). There is some "suggestion that the rule was intended to simply soften the old brutal law regarding homicides." Lewis, 381 Mass. at 414, 409 N.E.2d at 773. There is also support for the proposition that the rule was created by judges due to the uncertainty of medical science in determining the cause of death when the death occurs so long after the injury. See Hefler, 310 N.C. at 140, 310 S.E.2d at 313; W. LaFave & A. Scott, Criminal Law § 3.12(i) (2d ed. 1986).

The common law year and a day rule, as it has been applied in murder cases in North Carolina, was first stated by this Court in State v. Orrell, 12 N.C. (1 Dev.) 139 (1826). There, we said that "if death did not take place within a year and a day of the time of receiving the wound, the law draws the conclusion that it was not the cause of death; and neither the court nor jury can draw a contrary one.... For if death happened beyond that time,...