State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 30 December 1994
• Docket Number: No. 264A90-2,264A90-2
• Citation: 339 N.C. 1,452 S.E.2d 245
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Marvin Earl WILLIAMS, Jr.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Page 245

452 S.E.2d 245

339 N.C. 1

STATE of North Carolina v. Marvin Earl WILLIAMS, Jr.

No. 264A90-2.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Dec. 30, 1994.

Lacy H. Thornburg, Attorney General, by Isaac T. Avery, III, Special Deputy Attorney General, and Linda Anne Morris, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.

William F.W. Massengale and Marilyn G. Ozer, for defendant-appellant.

EXUM, Chief Justice.

Defendant was tried on indictments charging him with first-degree murder of Theron Price, and burglary with explosives, breaking and entering, armed robbery and attempted safecracking at the premises of Dewey Brothers, Inc. At the close of the State's evidence, the trial court dismissed the armed robbery charge and held the breaking and entering charge merged into that of burglary with explosives. The jury convicted defendant of first-degree murder on theories of felony murder, the underlying felony being burglary with explosives, and premeditation and deliberation. The jury also convicted defendant of burglary with explosives and attempted safecracking.

At the capital sentencing proceeding on the murder charge, the trial court, upon recommendation of the jury, imposed a sentence of death. The trial court also sentenced defendant to thirty-years imprisonment on the burglary conviction, but arrested judgment on the attempted safecracking conviction.

I.

On the Court's first consideration of defendant's appeal, we granted a new trial, concluding the trial court's instruction on reasonable doubt denied defendant due process. ¹ State v. Williams, 334 N.C. 440, 434 S.E.2d 588 (1993) (Williams I ). This decision was based entirely on State v. Bryant, 334 N.C. 333, 432 S.E.2d 291 (1993) (Bryant I ). In Bryant I, the Court held that, under Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39, 111 S.Ct. 328, 112 L.Ed.2d 339 (1990), and Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993), an essentially identical instruction violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

After our decision in Bryant I, the United States Supreme Court decided Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1, 114 S.Ct. 1239, 127 L.Ed.2d 583 (1994), in which it clarified its holdings in Cage and Sullivan and held that certain reasonable doubt instructions similar to those we considered in Bryant I and Williams I did not violate the Due Process Clause. Thereafter, the United States Supreme Court vacated this Court's decisions in Bryant I and Williams I and remanded these cases to us for consideration in light of Victor. North Carolina v. Bryant, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1365, 128 L.Ed.2d 42 (1994); North Carolina v. Williams, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1365, 128 L.Ed.2d 42 (1994).

On remand, we concluded in State v. Bryant, 337 N.C. 298, 446 S.E.2d 71 (1994) (Bryant II ), that, in light of Victor, there was no reversible error in the reasonable doubt instruction. Since the instructions here are practically identical to those in Bryant I and II, Bryant II now controls this issue. We now hold on the authority of Bryant II that the reasonable doubt instruction given in defendant Williams' trial was free from error.

Our opinion in Williams I also addressed several assignments of error we thought likely to arise at a new trial; the Court concluded none of them amounted to prejudicial error. ² We reaffirm our earlier resolutions of these assignments of error. We now discuss defendant's remaining assignments of error.

II.

Briefly summarized, ³ the State's evidence at the guilt-innocence proceeding of defendant's trial tended to show as follows:

On the morning of 12 February 1989, Lewis Rich, a security guard for Dewey Brothers, Inc., arrived at the company's premises and found the guardhouse gate locked. Unable to gain entry or locate Theron Price, the guard he was scheduled to relieve, Rich telephoned Richard Helms, the company president. Shortly thereafter, Helms arrived, opened the gate, and discovered the door to the payroll office partially open and a light emanating from within. Next to the door, Helms observed an acetylene torch and a cart carrying oxygen and acetylene tanks. Helms summoned the police who discovered a floor safe with evidence of carbon on its hinges left by an improperly adjusted acetylene torch.

The body of Theron Price was found in a steel shed next to the payroll office. Price's face and head were covered in blood. An autopsy revealed several wounds on the face and head caused by blunt-force trauma. The wounds on the head resulted in skull fractures and could have caused death. Two of these wounds would have required the force of a five-pound steel ball dropped from seven to twelve feet. The victim may have been conscious during the infliction of all the wounds, and for two to five minutes thereafter, and may have been hit while lying on the ground. The victim probably lived for five to ten minutes after the fatal blows were struck.

At trial the State's principal witness was Angelo Farmer, a Dewey Brother's employee. Several days following the discovery of Price's body, Farmer reported to his supervisors that he knew the identity of the killer. According to Farmer, he and defendant discussed breaking into Dewey Brothers and robbing its safe in the early part of February. On 11 February, when defendant asked Farmer if he was "ready to move," Farmer indicated that he was not. Defendant said: "I'm gone. I'm on my move." The following day, Farmer, upon learning of Price's death, confronted defendant and said: "Damn man. You killed a man." Defendant stated he did not intend to do it. When Farmer remarked that defendant could have tied up the victim, defendant responded that he wanted to but "the man kept coming."

After revealing this information, Farmer agreed to cooperate with the police. Wearing a tape recorder furnished by the police, Farmer engaged defendant in a conversation about the crimes. During the conversation, defendant said he had tried to break into the safe using an acetylene torch he found on the premises. When the watchman surprised him, defendant pulled a knife, but the guard "kept coming." Defendant then took the guard's time clock and hit him with it "two or three times." Defendant stated: "I got scared then, but then I thought about the money. I kept checking on him and he had not come back to. I knew I had done killed the m----- f----- then." Defendant said he continued to work on the safe and checked the guard once more. Upon hearing a truck approach the building, he attempted to wipe away his fingerprints and hide some of the evidence. He then fled.

Guilt-Innocence Proceeding

III.

We first discuss defendant's assignments of error pertaining to the jury selection process. Defendant argues the trial court erred in permitting the prosecutor to exercise peremptory challenges in an unconstitutional manner. According to defendant, the prosecutor exercised his peremptory challenges to exclude black jurors and jurors who did not embrace the death penalty. Defendant also contends the trial court erroneously permitted the prosecutor to raise various matters on voir dire that may have prejudiced the jury. Finally, defendant argues that the trial court erred in holding ex parte conferences with prospective jurors and other conferences with counsel at which defendant was not present.

A.

Defendant first contends the prosecutor violated his federal and state constitutional rights by using peremptory challenges to exclude black prospective jurors on the basis of their race and the trial court erred in overruling his objections to these challenges. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article 1, § 26 of the North Carolina Constitution forbid the use of peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory manner. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986); State v. Crandell, 322 N.C. 487, 501, 369 S.E.2d 579, 587 (1988). Having carefully reviewed the record, and according the requisite deference to the trial court's rulings, we find this argument to be unpersuasive.

Counsel examined seventy jurors during jury selection including the selection of two alternates. Of the forty-three jurors not excused for cause or by consent, thirty-five were white, seven were black and one was Asian. The State peremptorily challenged eight whites, five blacks and the Asian. The State accepted two blacks and did not exhaust its peremptory challenges. Defendant struck fourteen whites and one black, leaving a jury composed of eleven whites and one black with two white alternates. Defendant interposed Batson objections to three of the State's five strikes against blacks. After each of these objections, the prosecutor volunteered an explanation for the strike in question without waiting for the trial judge to determine whether defendant had made out a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination. In each instance the trial judge overruled defendant's objection.

The prosecutor explained that he challenged one of the jurors because her "family's criminal involvement gives me some problems." He struck another, after having unsuccessfully lodged a challenge for cause, because of the juror's "answers to the capital punishment questions." The prosecutor struck the last juror because of inconsistencies between her answers on a written questionnaire and her answers on voir dire. He also explained that he thought her neighborhood had "a lot of drug activity," and that one of her previous residences, Alfa Arms, "for a long period of time has been a problem with the police."

The Court in Batson established a three-step process for evaluating claims of racial discrimination in the prosecutor's use of peremptory strikes. Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 359, 111 S.Ct. 1859, 1866, 114 L.Ed.2d 395, 405 (1991). First, the defendant must establish a prima facie case that the prosecutor has peremptorily challenged prospective jurors on the basis of race. Id. Second, if such a showing is...