State v. Wilson

• Docket Number: COA21-34
• Decision Date: 07 November 2023
• Parties: STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. MARIO WILSON, Defendant.
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

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STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. MARIO WILSON, Defendant.

No. COA21-34

Court of Appeals of North Carolina

November 7, 2023

Heard in the Court of Appeals 5 October 2021.

Appeal by Defendant from judgments entered 5 March 2020 by Judge Todd Pomeroy in Cleveland County Superior Court. Nos. 16 CRS 54918-20, 22, 29

Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Zachary K. Dunn, for the State.

Marilyn G. Ozer for defendant-appellant.

MURPHY, Judge.

This appeal arises out of Defendant Mario Wilson's convictions of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder, one count of attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon, and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon. On appeal, Defendant argues (A) the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss all charges based on sufficiency of the evidence to support his being the perpetrator and (B) the trial court made inadequate Batson findings in light of State v Hobbs. 374 N.C. 345 (2020).

As explained more fully below, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the trial court correctly denied Defendant's motion to dismiss the charges. His specific arguments, which concern the alleged physical impossibility of witness testimony, do not actually establish the evidence at issue was impossible. However, because we agree that the trial court's Batson findings were procedurally inadequate under Hobbs, we reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with the procedure set forth by our Supreme Court.

BACKGROUND^[1]

In early October of 2016, two friends-Stevie Murray and Miranda Woods- reunited via the internet. At some point after reuniting, Woods asked whether she and her partner, a drug dealer named Jerrod Shippy, could come to Murray's house to weigh and package drugs. Murray agreed; and, when Woods and Shippy arrived at Murray's house, they were introduced to Aubre Sucato and Morris Abraham, a couple who frequently spent the night at Murray's house.

At various points throughout the evening of 26 October 2016 Murray, Woods, Shippy, Sucato, and Abraham began spending time at Murray's house, drinking alcohol and taking drugs until the early morning hours of 27 October 2016. Murray's three-year-old son, Liam, and ten-month-old baby were in the house, the former of whom was watching television in the living room where some of the adults were spending time. Abraham left just as Shippy arrived, and the two exchanged a moment of hostility. Shippy was armed with a handgun.

Later in the evening, the four remaining in the house-Murray, Woods, Shippy, and Sucato-went to sleep. Sucato went to one of the bedrooms, Woods fell asleep in another bedroom, and Murray and Shippy remained in the living room with Liam. While in bed, between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m., Sucato received three calls from Abraham in which Abraham expressed a desire to rob Shippy of his drugs. During the second call, Sucato got up and passed the phone to Murray, to whom Abraham also expressed that he wanted to rob Shippy. Both Sucato and Murray told Abraham not to rob Shippy because there were children in the house. During these calls, Defendant-Abraham's brother and former sexual partner of Murray-was audible in the background.

Twenty minutes after the third call, a man in a large hoodie wielding a handgun entered the house at the living room where Murray, Shippy, and Liam were resting. The hooded gunman fired at least 18 shots at Shippy after Shippy fired one shot at the hooded gunman. Shippy was left permanently paralyzed from the wounds he sustained in the gunfire, and two of the hooded gunman's shots connected with Liam's head, killing the toddler almost instantly.

Murray, awakened by the shots, began screaming and fled to the room where Sucato was sleeping, waking Sucato. Sucato then went to the living room, where she recognized Defendant as the hooded gunman. Sucato asked where Abraham was, and the hooded gunman replied that Abraham was not there.

After this exchange, Woods stopped in a hallway between the room she had been staying in and the living room to observe what was happening. Upon seeing her, the hooded gunman placed the barrel of his gun inches from her face and fired, killing her instantly.

Defendant's trial began on 17 February 2020. At trial, the State exercised two peremptory challenges to excuse African-American^2[] female prospective jurors after another was removed for cause at the State's request. Defendant raised a Batson objection after the State's exercise of its peremptory challenges, alleging that the State had vetted African-American female jurors more aggressively than similarly situated white jurors. Without ruling on whether Defendant had made a prima facie case of discrimination through these allegations, the trial court asked the State for its input, at which point the State responded that it had exercised peremptory challenges against the two jurors for knowing a witness and not paying attention, respectively. The trial court then stated it did not "believe [there had] been a prima facie case for a Batson challenge."

At trial, the State presented a variety of evidence of the events that took place on 26 October 2016, including, in relevant part, testimony from responding officers, Murray, Shippy, and Sucato, as well as expert testimony from a forensic pathologist. The forensic pathologist testified that the shot that killed Woods was fired no more than six inches from her face, and likely no more than two to three inches, and one of the responding officers testified that a shell casing near the location where Woods died was found "in the threshold of the bedroom[.]" Of the evidence presented, only Sucato's testimony expressly identified Defendant as the hooded gunman.

Defendant moved to dismiss all charges against him for insufficiency of the evidence at the close of the State's evidence, at the close of all evidence, and after sentencing. The trial court denied each of these motions.

Defendant was found guilty on all charges on 5 March 2020 and appealed in open court. Between 13 December 2021 and 6 April 2023, we held this case in abeyance pending our Supreme Court's resolution of State v. Campbell, 384 N.C. 126 (2023).

ANALYSIS

On appeal, Defendant argues that (A) the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the charges and (B) the trial court's response to his Batson objection was procedurally inadequate.

A. Motion to Dismiss

Defendant offers several bases for his argument that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence, ^3[] all of which pertain to the alleged physical impossibility of the testimony of Aubrey Sucato, the only witness identifying Defendant as the hooded gunman. As a result of these deficiencies, Defendant contends, the denial of his motion to dismiss amounted to a denial of his right to due process. Reviewing the matter de novo, see State v. Bagley, 183 N.C.App. 514, 523 (2007), we disagree.

"In ruling on a motion to dismiss, the trial court need determine only whether there is substantial evidence of each essential element of the crime and that the defendant is the perpetrator." State v. Call, 349 N.C. 382, 417 (1998). As to his argument concerning impossibility, however, Defendant appears to misunderstand when the concept of evidentiary impossibility applies. Our Supreme Court has long held that "evidence which is inherently impossible or in conflict with indisputable physical facts or laws of nature is not sufficient to take the case to the jury." State v. Cox, 289 N.C. 414, 422-23 (1976) (quoting Jones v. Schaffer, 252 N.C. 368, 378 (1960)). However, it remains the case that "[t]he credibility of a witness's identification testimony is a matter for the jury's determination, and only in rare instances will credibility be a matter for the court's determination." State v. Green, 296 N.C. 183, 188 (1978) (citation omitted).

North Carolina appellate courts have reserved the application of the principle of evidentiary impossibility for cases where there is no "reasonable possibility" of the evidence being reconcilable with basic physical facts or laws of nature, see State v. Miller, 270 N.C. 726, 732 (1967), such that the evidence is "inherently incredible[.]" State v. Coffey, 326 N.C. 268, 283 (1990). However, all cases applying this standard have done so on an ad hoc basis without further clarification as to the specific principles animating the distinction between impossible evidence and evidentiary conflicts susceptible to resolution by a jury. See Miller, 270 N.C. at 732; Cox, 289 N.C. at 423; State v. Wilson, 293 N.C. 47, 52 (1977); State v. Sneed, 327 N.C. 266, 273 (1990). As such, we turn to the existing caselaw to determine more precisely when evidence is deemed inherently incredible.

Inherent incredibility, in the criminal context, has most often related to the positioning of a witness and the surrounding environment vis-a-vis the witness's physical ability to perceive the subject of the testimony at issue. Compare Miller, 270 N.C. at 732 (finding witness testimony to be impossible evidence where the witness purported to identify the defendant, a stranger, as the perpetrator at a distance of 286 feet before any crime had been committed), with Cox, 289 N.C. at 423 (holding "there [was] a reasonable possibility of observation sufficient to permit subsequent identification" where a witness observed the defendant at multiple points for prolonged periods of time despite the defendant often wearing a mask throughout the duration), and Coffey, 326 N.C. at 283 ("[T]he defendant argues that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support his conviction because the testimony of all of the...