State v. Yoes, 659

• Decision Date: 01 November 1967
• Docket Number: No. 659,659
• Citation: 157 S.E.2d 386,271 N.C. 616
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Charles Donald YOES. Willie HALE, Jr. (Alias Willie Haile, Jr.) and Leroy Davis, Petitioner, v. STATE of North Carolina.

Page 386

157 S.E.2d 386

271 N.C. 616

STATE of North Carolina v.Charles Donald YOES.

Willie HALE, Jr. (Alias Willie Haile, Jr.) and Leroy Davis, Petitioner, v.STATE of North Carolina.

No. 659.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Nov. 1, 1967.

Atty. Gen., T. W. Bruton, Staff Atty., Andrew A. Vanore, Jr., and Staff Atty., W. B. Partin, Jr., Raleigh, for the State.

Elreta Melton Alexander, Greensboro, for appellant Yoes.

Jordan J. Frassineti, Greensboro, for appellant Hale.

Konrad K. Fish, Greensboro, for appellant Davis.

LAKE, Justice.

The crime of which these defendants were found guilty in the superior court is deemed by the law of this State to be unsurpassed by any other in its vicious nature or in its threat to a peaceful, well ordered society.The accumulated wisdom and experience of the people of North Carolina have caused them, in the Constitution of this State and through their representatives in the General Assembly, to declare this crime to be the equal in seriousness to cold-blooded, premeditated murder, and to provide by law that one found guilty of it shall be put to death unless the jury which so convicts him sees fit, in its discretion, to make his punishment imprisonment for the remainder of his life.N.C. Constitution, Aricle XI, § 2;G.S. § 14--21.It has been the experience of this State that no other offense is so likely to inflame the people of a community to the point of taking the

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punishment of the offender into their own hands without invoking judicial processes.

The interest of the State in the protection of its innocent people both from such criminal acts and from the resulting incitement to lawless reprisal, as well as the severity of the penalty to be imposed in event of a conviction, require the trial and the appellate courts to observe carefully the established procedures for the determination of the guilt or innocence of one so charged.When there has been a substantial and prejudicial departure from those procedures in a trial resulting in the conviction of the accused, it is the duty of this Court, upon an appeal by the defendant to it, to set aside such conviction and the resulting judgment, irrespective of our opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, and, thereupon, to direct his release from custody or the remanding of the case to the superior court for such further proceeding as may be in accordance with the law of this State.Consequently, we have considered carefully each assignment of error by these defendants.

The Motions to Quash--Alleged Racial Discrimination

It is axiomatic that a trial of an accused person in a court which has no jurisdiction of the matter cannot result in a valid determination of his guilt or innocence of the offense with which he is charged.Consequently, a judgment rendered by such court is void and, upon appeal, must be vacated irrespective of the sufficiency of the evidence presented in the trial court to establish the guilt of the accused.

A vaild indictment is a condition precedent to the jurisdiction of the superior court to determine the guilt or innocence of a defendant accused of this or any other capital felony and to the authority of the court to render a valid judgment in the matter.N.C. Constitution, Article I, § 12;State v. Bissette, 250 N.C. 514, 108 S.E.2d 858;State v. Thomas, 236 N.C. 454, 73 S.E.2d 283;State v. Beasley, 208 N.C. 318, 180 S.E. 598.An indictment returned by a grand jury not legally constituted is not a valid indictment.Consequently, 'A valid indictment returned by a legally constituted grand jury is an essential of jurisdiction.'State v. Wilson, 262 N.C. 419, 137 S.E.2d 109;State v. Covington, 258 N.C. 501, 128 S.E.2d 827;State v. Morgan, 226 N.C. 414, 38 S.E.2d 166.

In apt time, i.e., before pleading to the indictment, each of the appellants moved to quash the bill of indictment returned against him on four distinct grounds: (1) The grand jury which returned the bill of indictment was illegally constituted for the reason that persons of the Negro race were, and have been for the past several years, arbitrarily and systematically excluded from service upon the grand jury, each of these defendants being a Negro; (2) the grand jury, which returned the bill of indictment, was illegally constituted because its members were not selected in accordance with the statutes of this State; (3)G.S. § 14--21 is unconstitutional in that it permits the imposition of the death penalty upon a conviction for rape without the taking or endangering of a life; and (4)this statute is unconstitutional because it is enforced in a discriminatory manner against Negro defendants.

We are directed to no authority supporting the position of the defendants upon their third ground for the motion to quash the bills of indictment.The imposition of the death penalty upon conviction of the crime of rape is not unconstitutional per se.Being specifically authorized both by the Constitution of this State and by the statute, it is not cruel and unusual punishment in the constitutional sense.State v. Daniels, 197 N.C. 285, 148 S.E. 244.The fourth ground for the motions to quash is equally untenable.G.S. § 14--21, imposing the penalty of death upon conviction of rape, unless the jury at the time of rendering its verdict recommends that the punishment shall be imprisonment for life, applies

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to all persons convicted of the offense, without discrimination on account of the race of the convicted defendant or the race of the victim.Obviously, an allegation of discriminatory enforcement of the statute cannot be established by a tabulation, even if accurate and complete, of results reached in different cases tried in different courts before different juries upon evidence which necessarily varies from case to case.This contention of the defendants is clearly without merit, and there was no error in the quashing of their subpoenas duces tecum to clerks of the courts of other counties and in the refusal to hear such purported evidence of discriminatory enforcement of the statute.We turn, therefore, to their contentions with reference to the legality of the grand jury which returned the bills of indictment against them.

In State v. Lowry and State v. Mallory, 263 N.C. 536, 139 S.E.2d 870, Moore, J., speaking for a unanimous Court, said, 'This Court has held in a long and unbroken line of cases beginning with State v. Peoples, 131 N.C. 784, 42 S.E. 814(1902), that arbitrary exclusion of citizens from service on grand juries on account of race is a denial of due process to members of the excluded race charged with indictable offenses.'To the same effect, see: State v. Wilson, supra;State v. Arnold, 258 N.C. 563, 129 S.E.2d 229, reversed on another ground inArnold v. North Carolina, 376 U.S. 773, 84 S.Ct. 1032, 12 L.E.2d 77;Miller v. State, 237 N.C. 29, 74 S.E.2d 513;State v. Brown, 233 N.C. 202, 63 S.E.2d 99.Consequently, the indictment of a Negro defendant by a grand jury from which members of the defendant's race have been intentionally excluded on account of their race is not a valid indictment and confers upon the court no jurisdiction to determine the defendant's guilt or innocence of the offense charged in the indictment.State v. Covington, supra;State v. Perry, 250 N.C. 119, 108 S.E.2d 447;State v. Speller, 229 N.C. 67, 47 S.E.2d 537;State v. Koritz, 227 N.C. 552, 43 S.E.2d 77, questioned on another point in State v. Brunson, 229 N.C. 37, 47 S.E.2d 478.

This is true by reason by Article I, § 17, of the Constitution of North Carolina, as well as by reason of the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.So far as this State is concerned, this principle of the law did nor originate with the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.As long ago as 1879, Smith, C.J., speaking for a unanimous Court, in Capehart v. Stewart, 80 N.C. 101, said, 'The law knows no distinction among the people of the State in their civil and political rights and corresponding obligations and none such should be recognized by those who are charged with its administration.'Applying that principle, the Court said in the Capehart case that a judge may not direct the sheriff in summoning a tales juror to summon a member of a specified race.It was not until the following year that the Supreme Court of the United States, in Strauder v. State of West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 25 L.Ed. 664, by a divided Court, held invalid a West Virginia statute expressly limiting jury service to members of the white race.Since that early date there has been no conflict between the decisions of that Court and this concerning this basic principle and its fundamental corollaries, though there have, on occasion, arisen differences of opinion as to the proper application of these rules to the facts of a particular case.

Through the years since 1879, the following rules have been evolved and declared in cases before this Court and are now deemed by us elementary.

A jury list is not discriminatory, and a grand jury drawn therefrom is not unlawful, merely because it is made from the tax list of the county.State v. Lowry and State v. Mallory, supra;State v. Wilson, supra;Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. 469.It is not required that the Negro race be represented

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on a jury panel in the same ratio to the total membership as the Negro population of the county bears to the total population.State v. Lowry and State v. Mallory, supra;State v. Wilson, supra;Miller v. State, supra;24 Am.Jur., Grand Jury, § 27;38 C.J.S.Grand Juries§ 12.'It is not the right of any party * * * to be tried (or indicted) by a jury of his own race, or to have a representative of any particular race on the jury.It is his right to be tried by a competent jury from which members of his race have not been unlawfully excluded.'Stacy, C.J., speaking for the Court, in State v. Koritz, su...