State v. Williams
| Citation | 363 N.C. 689,686 S.E.2d 493 |
| Decision Date | 11 December 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 506A07.,506A07. |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Eugene Johnny WILLIAMS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina |
Roy Cooper, Attorney General, by Daniel P. O'Brien and William B. Crumpler, Assistant Attorneys General, for the State.
Staples S. Hughes, Appellate Defender, by Daniel Shatz, Assistant Appellate Defender; and Ann B. Petersen for defendant-appellant.
On 8 December 2004, defendant Eugene Johnny Williams was convicted of the first-degree murders of Nicholas Gillard and Cedric Leavy. Following these convictions, the trial court declared a mistrial only as to the penalty proceedings. New counsel was appointed for defendant, and on 1 May 2007, a different jury returned a binding recommendation that defendant be sentenced to death for both murders. We find no error in defendant's convictions or sentences.
Defendant was detained pursuant to a possession of stolen goods charge from 4 June 2001 until 5 October 2001. Defendant was unable to raise the bail money to be released. Defendant informed another inmate, Jimmy Locklear, that he could not raise the bail money because an unnamed person had not paid for a motorcycle that defendant had stolen and sold to him. Inmates who spent time with defendant that summer heard defendant say that upon release he was going to "get" the person who owed him money and "f*** him up."
Robin Gillis, an inmate who spent time with defendant in the Cumberland County Detention Center, had worked for Gillard pressure washing houses and trucks. On one occasion, Gillis had observed money passing between defendant and Gillard. Defendant told Gillis that he had been trying to contact Gillard to collect the $1400 owed so that he could make his $1100 bail. Defendant appeared outraged that Gillard would not communicate with him while he was in the detention center. Defendant told Gillis he was going to kill Gillard when he was released.
Upon his release on 5 October 2001, defendant visited Diana Powell. Powell testified that defendant made a telephone call from her residence to Gillard's residence. Telephone records confirm this testimony, and also show that defendant attempted to contact Gillard seven more times over the next several days. A message left by defendant on Gillard's voice mail was retrieved by law enforcement. The message said Hey, Nick, this is J. I got your ZX-12. It's brand new. I got the paperwork and the keys to it. Just call or come by the crib Saturday night. I'll let you check it out. It's still in the "m*****-f******" crate. Come by yourself, and don't bring nobody to my crib.
On Tuesday morning, 9 October 2001, Gillard telephoned his friend Cedric Leavy and drove to Leavy's residence to pick him up. Gillard honked the horn and Leavy went out to meet him, leaving his mobile telephone on the table. Sharon Cogdell, Leavy's fiancée, attempted to contact Leavy by calling Gillard's mobile telephone. Gillard informed her that they were busy and Leavy would call her back. Telephone records indicate that Cogdell's call to Gillard was placed at 10:13 a.m., and that Gillard's mobile phone was within a three-mile radius of the cellular tower closest to defendant's residence. The signal from the tower to Gillard's telephone traveled through the southwest panel of the tower, the quadrant in which defendant's residence was located. Cogdell attempted many other calls late into the night, but they were not answered. On 10 October 2001, she informed the police that Leavy and Gillard were missing.
Also on 10 October 2001, Esther Locklear noticed an unfamiliar vehicle in her neighborhood in rural Cumberland County. After her son observed a body covered with a blanket in the backseat of the vehicle, Ms. Locklear contacted law enforcement. The vehicle was a burgundy Chevrolet Malibu four-door sedan with a plate registered to Gillard. Law enforcement secured the area and began an investigation. There were no prints on the ground or tire tracks that were thought to be of any evidentiary value; however, a white crystalline substance on the exterior of the vehicle appeared to be dried soap suds.
The body in the backseat was an African-American male who was six feet, two inches tall and weighed 430 pounds. It appeared from ropes tied around his wrists and then tightly secured around the front seat that his body had been winched in the vehicle. The body was determined to be that of Leavy. Law enforcement found Gillard's body in the trunk. The autopsies showed that both men had suffered contact and near-contact bullet wounds to the head. Gillard sustained three gunshot wounds, and Leavy received six. Three projectiles recovered from the bodies were determined to have been fired from the same weapon, a nine millimeter caliber firearm with a barrel containing nine lands and grooves with a left-hand twist. Only one manufacturer made such a firearm, and the murder weapon was either a Hi-Point nine millimeter Model C pistol or a Model 995 carbine rifle.
A search of defendant's residence revealed five spent nine millimeter shell casings in the dirt driveway and yard. In the backyard, near the patio, law enforcement observed two areas of roughly twenty to thirty square feet each where fresh soil had been spread over burned grass. The ground smelled of gasoline and putrid blood. Two blood-stained pieces of concrete were found buried several inches in the ground at the burn sites. Testing revealed the blood to be human.
Investigators also found two spent nine millimeter projectiles in the burned ground. It was determined that the two projectiles had been fired through a barrel with a left-hand twist and with nine lands and grooves; that is, they had been fired from a Hi-Point nine millimeter Model C pistol or Model 995 carbine rifle, as had the projectiles found in the victims' bodies. Luminol spraying revealed two tracks of blood coming from the burned areas to the right and running through the yard, where they abruptly stopped.
Jerard Vinson testified that in October 2001 defendant asked him to pawn a ring because defendant did not have identification. Vinson pawned the ring, which was gold and had a black onyx stone, on 17 October 2001. Law enforcement later recovered the ring from the pawnshop. Gillard's ex-girlfriend testified the ring looked like the one Gillard wore and was wearing on the morning of his disappearance. The pawnshop manager testified that the retail portion of the store was the area's sole distributor of this brand of ring, and that Gillard had originally bought a gold and onyx ring there on 10 February 2001 for three hundred dollars.
Defendant presented no evidence at the guilt phase of his trial. The jury returned verdicts of guilty of first-degree murder of both Gillard and Leavy, but returned a verdict of not guilty as to defendant's alleged robbery of Gillard. The trial court dismissed the robbery charge as to Leavy.
Following the verdicts, both of defendant's attorneys, Carl Ivarsson and George Franks, were allowed to withdraw as counsel following defendant's physical attack on Franks. The trial court then declared a mistrial as to the penalty proceeding.
In 2007 a new jury was empaneled for the sentencing proceeding of defendant's trial. The State offered substantially the same evidence as it had presented in the guilt phase. In addition, the State offered victim impact evidence from Pamela Leavy, who was Leavy's older sister, and Sharon Cogdell, Leavy's girlfriend. Victim impact evidence as to Gillard's death was presented through testimony of Toni Washington, Gillard's former girlfriend, and Gillard's friends Michael and Vanessa Burden.
Defendant presented mitigation evidence tending to show that he had a difficult childhood. Defendant's father physically abused his children, sexually abused defendant's sisters, and physically abused defendant's mother. On one occasion defendant stood up to his father, who then shot him in the leg. Defendant's ex-girlfriend testified about how defendant was caring, how he took care of his brother and parents, and how he also helped her take care of her infant daughter. Defendant's nephew testified that defendant's mother burned trash and scraps in the yard of the residence. On rebuttal, Detective Sterling McClain testified that investigators had discovered and examined a conventional burn pile separate and distinct from the two burn piles that smelled of blood and fuel.
Following closing arguments by counsel and the trial court's instructions to the jury, the jury deliberated and returned a binding recommendation that defendant be sentenced to death. As to both murders, the jury found that they were part of a course of conduct in which defendant engaged and which included the commission by defendant of other crimes of violence against another person. N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(11) (2007). One or more jurors found that defendant had no significant history of prior criminal activity, id. § 15A-2000(f)(1) (2007), along with several nonstatutory mitigating circumstances. The jury determined that the mitigating circumstances were insufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstance and that the aggravating circumstance was sufficiently substantial, when considered with the mitigating circumstances, to impose the death penalty. The trial court then entered judgment accordingly.
Defendant's first argument is that the trial court erred in not removing George Franks as his counsel or, in the alternative, by not holding a hearing to determine whether there was a conflict of interest between defendant and Franks. W...
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