State v. Wilson, 180A83

• Decision Date: 05 June 1984
• Docket Number: No. 180A83,180A83
• Citation: 311 N.C. 117,316 S.E.2d 46
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Luther Ray WILSON, Jr.

Page 46

316 S.E.2d 46

311 N.C. 117

STATE of North Carolina v. Luther Ray WILSON, Jr.

No. 180A83.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

June 5, 1984.

Rufus L. Edmisten, Atty. Gen. by Elizabeth C. Bunting, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.

Charles T. Browne, Asheboro, for defendant-appellant.

FRYE, Justice.

Defendant was charged in bills of indictment, proper in form, with the armed robbery and murder of Leonard Alexander Teel on or about 22 October 1981. Upon defendant's plea of not guilty, a jury found defendant guilty of robbery with a firearm, guilty of murder in the first degree based upon the felony-murder rule, and not guilty of murder in the first degree based upon premeditation and deliberation. After a sentencing hearing, the jury recommended that defendant be sentenced to life imprisonment on the conviction of murder in the first degree. Thereafter, Judge Seay arrested judgment on defendant's conviction of robbery with a firearm because that felony conviction was used as the basis for finding defendant guilty of murder in the first degree. Pursuant to the jury's recommendation, Judge Seay sentenced defendant to life imprisonment.

Pursuant to N.C.Gen.Stat. § 7A-27(a) (1981), defendant appeals his conviction of murder in the first degree and the sentence imposed thereon as a matter of right.

I.

Defendant seeks a new trial, assigning as error: the trial court's denial of certain pre-trial motions; the trial court's alleged erroneous rulings made during the course of his trial; the trial court's signing of the judgment and commitment; and, the trial court's denial of his motion for appropriate relief. After carefully reviewing all of the defendant's assignments of error, we have found none sufficient to upset the jury verdict in this case or the judgment and commitment entered thereon by the trial judge.

The State's evidence, primarily circumstantial, tended to show the following:

The decedent, Leonard Alexander Teel, was last seen alive by his son, Frank Teel, on 22 October 1981. Mr. Teel had visited his son's farm in Asheboro and left his son's house at approximately 5:00 p.m., apparently headed home.

On that same day, defendant and Jeffery Sealy were riding around Randolph County together. After Mr. Sealy and defendant had discussed the possibility of defendant attempting to get a job with Mr. Teel, by whom Mr. Sealy had previously been employed, Mr. Sealy drove the defendant to the Teel residence. Upon arrival at the Teel residence, defendant, who was wearing a brown leather jacket, got out of the car and stated that he was going to inquire about a job. Defendant instructed Mr. Sealy to pick him up in thirty minutes. Mr. Sealy then departed the scene and went to visit some friends.

Gwinn Miller, who lived behind Mr. Teel, testified that on 22 October 1981 she was working in her engraving shop behind her house. She was startled and frightened by the sudden appearance of a white man wearing a black toboggan and a "brown leathery jacket" who walked past her house and disappeared into the woods. About ten minutes later, Mrs. Miller and her son observed the same man walking near her driveway with a ski mask pulled over his face and a "long gun in his left hand." Mrs. Miller called the sheriff's department.

Eugene Craven, also a neighbor of Mr. Teel, testified that his home was broken into during the late afternoon hours of 22 October 1981. A .22 semi-automatic Hi-standard pistol, a few bicentennial quarters and two or three watches were stolen.

Approximately thirty minutes after Mr. Sealy had left the defendant at the Teel residence, he returned to the same general area and picked up the defendant in front of a local church. Defendant told Sealy that he had killed "old man Teel." As Sealy and the defendant were driving across the Deep River Bridge, defendant put some items in his toboggan and then threw the toboggan over the bridge. Subsequently, defendant gave Sealy a .22 semi-automatic Hi-standard pistol and a lady's wrist watch.

Two days later, on 24 October 1981, Frank Teel went to visit his father. Upon arrival at his father's home, he noticed that the screen of the outside door had been cut, the back door was ajar, and the night latch on the back door had been broken. As he entered the house, Frank Teel observed his father's body lying on the floor near the refrigerator. He observed three bullet wounds in his father's chest, and he immediately knew that his father was dead.

A subsequent search of the crime scene, by various law enforcement officers, led to the discovery of four .22 caliber cartridge casings and one live round of .22 caliber ammunition. As a result of the ensuing police investigation, a .22 semi-automatic Hi-standard pistol was received from William Routh and traced through a chain of sellers to Mr. Sealy. Additionally, approximately two weeks after the murder of Mr. Teel, an underwater recovery team discovered a Harrison Richardson .22 caliber revolver, which had belonged to the deceased, in the water beneath the Deep River Bridge.

An autopsy revealed that the decedent had one gunshot wound in the head and four gunshot wounds in the chest and upper abdomen area. The examining physician stated that the cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds to the head, chest and abdomen.

A firearms expert from the State Bureau of Investigation testified that the bullet casings discovered at the scene of the crime were fired from the .22 semi-automatic Hi-standard pistol apparently stolen from Mr. Craven. He also stated that the five bullets removed from the decedent's body could have been fired from the same gun, but they were too decomposed for him to be able to make that determination.

Two witnesses, a former female friend of defendant and a former prison cellmate of defendant, testified that on different occasions defendant told them that he had broken into a man's house with the intention of robbing him, and subsequently had to kill him after the man pointed a gun at him.

No evidence was presented by defendant.

II.

Defendant first assigns as error the trial court's denial of his motion to bar prosecution for murder in the first degree. Defendant contends that the district attorney has unbridled discretion in determining who will be prosecuted for murder in the first degree and thereby subject to the death penalty. He argues that this discretionary power "amounts to a denial of due process and equal protection rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution." Defendant also argues that "he was the only person to be tried for his life in Randolph County within recent memory." Therefore, defendant contends that the district attorney's decisions are arbitrary.

In support of his contentions, the defendant presented evidence at a pretrial hearing that the district attorney's office in the Nineteen-B Judicial District did not have a written policy concerning which defendants would be charged and prosecuted for murder in the first degree. Defendant's evidence showed that during the administration of District Attorney Garland N. Yates, in eight out of nine cases where the defendant had been charged with murder in the first degree (exclusive of defendant's case), the defendant was subsequently allowed to plead guilty to a lesser-included offense or the defendant had been tried on a lesser-included offense. Defendant contends that his case was treated differently because the victim's family wanted him to be tried for murder in the first degree and subject to the death penalty.

During the pretrial hearing, Mr. Yates testified that no written guidelines existed as to which defendants would be charged and prosecuted for murder in the first degree and thereby subject to the death penalty. However, he stated that the various facts and circumstances of each case were determinative in deciding that question. Additionally, in response to a question posed by defense counsel concerning why the death penalty was being sought against defendant, Mr. Yates responded, "Mr. Browne, I'm trying him for first degree murder. I consulted with the family. It's their feeling that they want to pursue first degree murder. Only if the family wanted a plea to second degree murder would it be possible for that plea to be entered." Mr. Yates also stated that he always, if possible, consulted with the victim's family to consider their feelings about the case. However, he stated that the wishes of the family were only one of many factors that he and his staff considered. Based primarily on the above evidence, defendant asserts that the State should have been barred from prosecuting him for murder in the first degree. We disagree.

In State v. Spicer, 299 N.C. 309, 261 S.E.2d 893 (1980), this Court addressed similar arguments relating to the discretionary powers of the district attorney. In Spicer, the defendant alleged that in other cases where the prosecuting witness indicated that he or she did not desire to have the case prosecuted, the district attorney had dropped the charges. However, the defendant contended that in his case, the district attorney would not drop the charges against him, even though the prosecuting witnesses indicated that they did not want to prosecute the case. Therefore, defendant Spicer claimed that he was being denied equal protection of the laws.

In Spicer, this Court recognized that the district attorney may not, "during the exercise of his discretion, transcend the boundaries of the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection." Id. at 312, 261 S.E.2d at 895. However, this Court stated:

District attorneys have wide discretion in performing the duties of their office. This encompasses the discretion to decide who will or will not be prosecuted. In making such decisions, district attorneys must weigh many factors such as 'the likelihood of successful prosecution, the social value of obtaining a conviction as against the time and...