State v. White

• Decision Date: 17 December 2002
• Docket Number: No. COA01-1495.,COA01-1495.
• Citation: 154 NC App. 598,572 S.E.2d 825
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. James Mandel WHITE.

572 S.E.2d 825

154 NC App. 598

STATE of North Carolina v. James Mandel WHITE.

No. COA01-1495.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

December 17, 2002.

Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Daniel P. O'Brien, for the State.

James R. Parish, Fayetteville, for defendant-appellant.

CAMPBELL, Judge.

Defendant was indicted on 26 June 2000 for first degree murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon of Ernest Odell Easom ("Easom") and felonious burning of Easom's automobile. Defendant was tried before a jury on 16 April 2001, Judge Jack A. Thompson ("Judge Thompson") presiding. On 2 May 2001, the jury returned verdicts of guilty of murder in the first degree under the felony murder rule, guilty of robbery with a dangerous weapon, and not guilty of burning personal property. Judge Thompson arrested judgment on the conviction of robbery with a dangerous weapon, and sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment without parole.

The State's evidence tended to show that Easom was an elderly man who occasionally hired people to do his yard work. Easom paid for these services with a meal and cash. Defendant was hired by Easom in mid-November 1999 to trim tree limbs, and was paid in part with a meal. On 12 December 1999, defendant began staying approximately one quarter mile from Easom's home in the trailer of an acquaintance, Jeffrey Allen Gallier ("Gallier").

In the early evening hours of Monday, 13 December 1999, the defendant visited a friend, Andrea McKenzie ("McKenzie") and asked her for a knife sharpener, and explained he planned to "take care of" someone who owed him money. He obtained a long butcher knife with a brown handle. The knife appeared to be rusty. McKenzie testified the defendant said that if he wasn't paid he was going to kill the person who owed him money. At approximately 9 p.m. that evening, defendant returned to McKenzie's home driving a car. There was blood all over him and the knife. Defendant said, "I told you I was going to get him." He took a shower and left his clothes to be washed. Defendant then went back outside, brought a television into the house, and asked McKenzie if she wanted to buy it for $165 or $175. McKenzie accepted the television and told the defendant she would pay him in a few days. Later that week McKenzie sold the television to her relative Jovan Carter ("Carter") for $40.

Gallier, the man with whom defendant was staying, testified that on either Monday or Tuesday, 13 or 14 December, defendant came in around midnight with a black trash bag with groceries including Bob's Candy Canes, Ritz Crackers, Carefree Gum, coffee, canned goods, macaroni with beef, and eggs and other trash bags. Gallier found this strange since defendant had no source of income or money. Defendant explained that a lady friend had given him the groceries. Around this time Gallier noticed that his foot-long, wooden-handled kitchen knife was missing. The knife was not rusty, but did give that appearance.

The day following the murder and robbery the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office was called regarding a burning car. The license plate revealed the car belonged to Easom. On Friday, 17 December 1999, Detective Bobby Horne ("Detective Horne") went to Easom's home to investigate the burning of the car. As he arrived, some of Easom's family also arrived and indicated they were worried because they hadn't seen Easom in a few days. Detective Horne approached the house, found it locked, but looked through a window and saw a body lying in the kitchen.

Detective Horne called for assistance and an investigation began. There was no sign of forced entry. After prying the back door open with a crowbar, Officers entered and found Easom lying on his back with a pillow over his face. The pillow had a bloodstain from what appeared to be a long knife blade, as if the knife had been wiped off on the pillow. Coins were found on the floor around Easom's body, but no wallet or currency was found on his person. The kitchen cabinets were open and appeared to have been disturbed, and there were boxes of food on the floor. There were boxes of Bob's Candy Canes, Ritz Crackers, and Carefree Gum in the home. There was a box of white trash bags on the kitchen table and large black trash bags on the china cabinet. In the living room the entertainment center had a space where a television would normally go and a dust pattern consistent with there having been an item there. Instruction books for a Zenith Two Model television were found, but no such television was in the home.

An autopsy revealed Easom died from three stab wounds. One wound was to the left side of his abdomen. Another was to his upper right chest, penetrating his lung. The incision from the third indicated that it took at least three strokes to lacerate his right carotid artery. He had not been suffocated with the pillow.

Further evidence was developed during the investigation. An expert, who studied the trash bags' extrusion lines and the melt pattern that is part of the manufacturing process, testified that, in his opinion, based on markings from the manufacturing process, the trash bag defendant brought to Gallier's trailer was from the roll found in Easom's home. Defendant's fingerprints were on some of the groceries he brought into Gallier's trailer. The television recovered from Carter's home was a Zenith Two Model, the same brand and model as the instruction book found in Easom's home.

Easom's sister-in-law, who lived behind him, recalled the last time she saw Easom alive was the afternoon of 13 December 1999. That evening at approximately 8 p.m. she noticed the brake lights of Easom's car repeatedly going on and off. The car was then driven away. She noted this was unusual because Easom never left home so late at night.

Demarco Murphy ("Murphy"), a friend of defendant, testified he was with defendant a few days before the incident and defendant had threatened he was going to kill a man who owed him money. Jerome Banks ("Banks"), a cellmate of defendant, testified defendant admitted he had started robbing a man he knew and when the man resisted he stabbed the man and cut his throat because the man knew him. Banks testified defendant told him defendant had taken the man's television and left.

Defendant declined to submit evidence.

Defendant argues the trial court erred by: (I) admitting the fingerprint evidence; (II) allowing a police investigator to testify that the pillowcase placed over Easom's face indicated that Easom knew his attacker; (III) allowing the same investigator to testify the television recovered from Carter's residence was "more than probably" Easom's; (IV) failing to dismiss for insufficient evidence the charge of robbery and felony murder.

I. Fingerprint Evidence

Defendant asserts the trial court erred by admitting evidence of defendant's fingerprints on a box of Ritz Crackers and Bob's Candy Canes found inside Gallier's trailer. Defendant asserts that the evidence is not relevant, and alternatively, if it is relevant that its probative value was substantially outweighed by danger of unfair prejudice.

Relevant evidence is "evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence." N.C. Gen.Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 401 (2001). "[I]n a criminal case every circumstance calculated to throw any light upon the supposed crime is admissible." State v. Collins, 335 N.C. 729, 735, 440 S.E.2d 559, 562 (1994). "[E]ven though a trial court's rulings on relevancy technically are not discretionary and therefore are not reviewed under the abuse of discretion standard applicable to Rule 403, such rulings are given great deference on appeal." State v. Wallace, 104 N.C.App. 498, 502, 410 S.E.2d 226, 228 (1991). Here, the fingerprint evidence tends to show defendant touched the food items. The evidence thereby tends to corroborate Gallier's testimony concerning these food items. When considered with Gallier's testimony that defendant brought the food home around the time of the murder, that the brands of food were the same as the disturbed items in Easom's house, and the expert's testimony that the trash bag used to transport the food came from Easom's home, the fingerprint evidence tends to "shed light" on the robbery. Therefore, the fingerprint evidence was relevant. "Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice." N.C. Gen.Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 403 (2001). "Unfair prejudice has been defined as `an undue tendency to suggest decision on an improper basis, commonly, though not necessarily, an emotional one.'" State v. Mason, 315 N.C. 724, 731, 340 S.E.2d 430, 435 (1986) (quoting Commentary to N.C. R. Evid. 403). Whether or not to exclude evidence as being unfairly prejudicial is a matter "within the sound discretion of the trial judge." Id. "[H]is ruling may be reversed for an abuse of discretion only upon a showing that it `was so arbitrary that it could not have been the result of a reasoned decision.'" Id., (quoting State v. Thompson, 314 N.C. 618, 626, 336 S.E.2d 78, 82 (1985)). While this evidence tends to support the finding that a robbery occurred, it does not provoke an emotional response or another improper basis influencing the jury in its consideration of the evidence. This evidence was not unfairly prejudicial, and therefore was properly admitted. Accordingly, we hold admission of this evidence was not error.

II. Pillowcase Testimony

Defendant argues the trial court erred in permitting Lieutenant Ray Wood ("Lieutenant Wood") to testify that the pillow placed across Easom's face was significant because it suggested he knew his attacker. Defendant argues that Lieutenant Wood was testifying as a lay witness, and as such could only testify to his personal observations. Since Lieutenant Wood did not personally...