Opinion
No. COA12–836.
2013-02-19
STATE of North Carolina v. William Henry PARKER.
Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Special Deputy Attorney General M .A. Kelly Chambers, for the State. Duncan B. McCormick for Defendant.
Appeal by Defendant from judgments entered 11 January 2012 by Judge Richard W. Stone in Guilford County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 31 January 2013. Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Special Deputy Attorney General M .A. Kelly Chambers, for the State. Duncan B. McCormick for Defendant.
STEPHENS, Judge.
Procedural History and Evidence
This appeal arises from charges against Defendant William Henry Parker for possession of a firearm by a felon on 23 September and 21 December 2009, and two counts each of discharging a weapon into occupied property and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill (“AWDWITK”) on the latter date. Defendant was also indicted for having attained the status of violent habitual felon. These charges were joined for trial and the matter came on before the superior court in Guilford County in January 2012.
The evidence at trial tended to show the following: On 23 September 2009, Johnny France was sitting on his front porch with Ravonda Thomas celebrating his seventy-sixth birthday when the pair heard gunshots. Defendant appeared from around some bushes, holding a small revolver. Both Thomas and France knew Defendant, and Thomas had considered Defendant a friend. Defendant approached the porch, waving the gun and shouting that people were “talking about” him. Thomas asked Defendant what he meant. Defendant replied by firing multiple shots into Thomas's car and then entering France's house. Thomas went to a nearby street corner and called the police. When the officers arrived at France's home, Defendant was gone. Defendant turned himself in on 5 October 2009.
After the shooting on 23 September 2009, Defendant contacted Thomas on several occasions. Thomas testified that she met and spoke with Defendant, explaining that she had forgiveness in her heart and wanted Defendant to have a second chance. Defendant even helped Thomas move into a new apartment in November 2009. However, as Defendant's December 2009 court date on the September 2009 shooting approached, his behavior changed. Defendant made comments Thomas could not clearly understand, particularly a comment that “I should have taken care of this a long time ago.” Thomas interpreted this as a threat related to the upcoming court date. In the days just before the 21 December shooting, Defendant called Thomas so frequently that Thomas changed her phone number.
On 21 December 2009, Defendant told James Michael Lovett that Thomas was the reason he was facing a criminal charge and stated he was going to have to kill her. Lovett called Thomas and told her of the threat, and Thomas in turn called the police. That evening, Thomas was at home when she heard several gunshots and a bullet hit a lampshade near where she was sitting. Thomas crawled to her bedroom and called the police. When officers arrived at Thomas's home, they discovered that two bullets had entered her apartment.
James Randall Monroe testified that he had been unloading groceries from his car on the evening of 21 December 2009 when he heard two gunshots behind him and called 911. Although he could not see it from where he was standing, Thomas's apartment was behind Monroe, in the direction of the shots. Shortly thereafter, Monroe saw a man wearing a dark jacket with a hood walking away from the area of Thomas's apartment complex. As Monroe watched, the man turned back and walked toward Thomas's apartment complex.
Officer Paul Grimberg of the High Point Police Department responded to Monroe's report of shots fired, and as he approached Monroe's residence, he saw a man wearing a dark jacket and carrying a white plastic bag walking near the road on which Thomas lived. After getting Monroe's description of the man Monroe had seen just after hearing the shots, Grimberg believed the man he had seen could be the suspect. Grimberg located and followed the man and called out for him to stop. However, the man kept walking through a yard directly across the street from Thomas's apartment, and Grimberg was not able to detain him. At trial, Grimberg identified Defendant as the man he had seen.
Grimberg then proceeded to Thomas's apartment. About two minutes later, Defendant knocked on Thomas's back door. Grimberg went out Thomas's front door, walked around the building, and encountered Defendant. Grimberg and another officer who had arrived as backup arrested Defendant who did not have a gun in his possession at the time. A subsequent canine search of the area failed to locate any weapon.
Defendant presented no evidence. Defendant moved to dismiss all charges against him at the close of the State's evidence and at the close of all evidence. The trial court dismissed one count of discharging a weapon into occupied property and one count of AWDWITK, but denied Defendant's motion as to the remaining charges. The jury returned verdicts of guilty on both counts of possession of a firearm by a felon, and one count each of discharging a weapon into occupied property and AWDWITK. The jury also found that Defendant was a violent habitual felon. The trial court sentenced Defendant to life imprisonment without parole. Defendant appeals.
Discussion
On appeal, Defendant brings forward two arguments: that the trial court erred in denying his motions to dismiss (1) the December 2009 charges on grounds that the evidence was insufficient to show that Defendant was the person who fired the shots into Thomas's apartment, and (2) the AWDWITK charges on grounds that the evidence of Defendant's specific intent was insufficient. We find no error.
Standard of Review
The standard of review for a motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence is well settled. The trial court must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, drawing all reasonable inferences in the State's favor. All evidence, competent or incompetent, must be considered. Any contradictions or conflicts in the evidence are resolved in favor of the State, and evidence unfavorable to the State is not considered. In its analysis, the trial court must determine whether there is substantial evidence (1) of each essential element of the offense charged and (2) that defendant is the perpetrator of the offense. Substantial evidence is such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. When the evidence raises no more than a suspicion of guilt, a motion to dismiss should be granted. However, so long as the evidence supports a reasonable inference of the defendant's guilt, a motion to dismiss is properly denied even though the evidence also permits a reasonable inference of the defendant's innocence. The test for sufficiency of the evidence is the same whether the evidence is direct, circumstantial or both.
State v. Bradshaw, ––– N.C. ––––, ––––, 728 S.E.2d 345, 347 (2012) (citations, quotation marks, and brackets omitted).
I. Evidence that Defendant Fired the Shots in December 2009
Defendant first argues that the evidence that he was the person who fired shots into Thomas's apartment on 21 December 2009 was insufficient to go to the jury. We disagree.
Our Courts have recognized the difficulty in assessing the sufficiency of evidence that a particular defendant was the perpetrator of a particular crime:
The difficulty in label[ ]ing the required level of proof that [a] defendant committed the crime touches only the surface of the problem presented upon a motion to dismiss. The real problem lies in applying the test to the individual facts of a case, particularly where the proof is circumstantial. One method courts use to assist analysis is to classify evidence of guilt into several rather broad categories. Although the language is by no means consistent, courts often speak in terms of proof of motive, opportunity, capability[,] and identity, all of which are merely different ways to show that a particular person committed a particular crime. In most cases these factors are not essential elements of the crime, but instead are circumstances which are relevant to identify an accused as the perpetrator of a crime. While the cases do not generally indicate what weight is to be given evidence of these various factors, a few rough rules do appear. It is clear, for instance, that evidence of either motive or opportunity alone is insufficient to carry a case to the jury....
When the question is whether evidence of both motive and opportunity will be sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss, the answer is much less clear. The answer appears to rest more upon the strength of the evidence of motive and opportunity, as well as other available evidence, rather than an easily quantifiable “bright line” test. For instance, in State v. Furr, 292 N.C. 711, 235 S.E.2d 193,cert. denied, 434 U.S. 924, 98 S.Ct. 402, 54 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977), [the] defendant threatened [his] ex-wife repeatedly, tried to hire others to kill her, possessed a garage door opener to her home and lived within five minutes of her home. Our Supreme Court held that this evidence was sufficient only to raise a suspicion or conjecture as to [the] defendant's guilt and that [the] defendant's motion to dismiss should have been allowed. Likewise, the evidence was deemed insufficient in the following cases: State v. Lee, supra ( [the] defendant had beaten and threatened the victim, who was his former lover, was aware she had had an affair with a neighbor, owned a gun and lived in the same mobile home with her, a few miles from the spot where the victim was found shot to death); State v. Gragg, supra ( [the] defendant bore grudges against both victims, had threatened them, possessed dynamite of the kind used in the murder and was seen within half a mile of the victims' home on the day of the killing).
State v. Bell, 65 N.C.App. 234, 238–39, 309 S.E.2d 464, 467–68 (1983) (emphasis in original) (some citations omitted), affirmed, 311 N.C. 299, 316 S.E.2d 72 (1984). Further, in evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence, “[o]nce the court has determined that the evidence of motive and opportunity as a whole surmounts the initial benchmark of sufficiency, the task of assessing the value and weight of that evidence is for the jury.” State v. Miles, ––– N.C.App. ––––, ––––, 730 S.E.2d 816, 825 (2012). “Once the court determines that a reasonable inference of [a] defendant's guilt may be drawn from the circumstances, then it is for the jury to decide whether the facts taken singly or in combination, satisfy them beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is actually guilty.” State v. Stone, 323 N.C. 447, 452, 373 S.E.2d 430, 433–34 (1988) (citations and quotation marks omitted).
Here, the evidence at trial was substantial as to Defendant's motive, opportunity, and means to commit the offenses on 21 December. As to motive, there was testimony from both Thomas and Lovett about Defendant's anger at and intent to harm Thomas. In particular, Lovett testified that, on the day of the shooting, Defendant told Lovett, “I'm going to have to do [Thomas] ... she the reason [sic] that I got this gun charge so I'm going to have to kill her.”
Further, substantial evidence tended to show Defendant's opportunity and means to commit the crimes: Monroe saw a man matching Defendant's appearance walking away from Thomas's home just after the gunshots were fired and then turning back toward her home. Grimberg saw Defendant a few minutes later walking through a yard just across from Thomas's apartment and refusing to stop when Grimberg called out for him to do so. Minutes later, Defendant knocked on Thomas's back door and was apprehended. Defendant was known to have had and used a revolver in the shooting of Thomas's car in September. Such a gun would not leave behind shell casings and, at the scene of the December shooting, no shell casings were found.
We note that the cases cited by Defendant involved factual circumstances where either motive or opportunity was present, but not both, rendering those cases easily distinguishable from the circumstances presented here. See, e.g., State v. Furr, 292 N.C. 711, 235 S.E.2d 193,cert. denied, 434 U.S. 924, 54 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977); State v. Hayden, ––– N.C.App. ––––, 711 S.E.2d 492,disc. review denied, 365 N.C. 349, 717 S.E.2d 737 (2011). Further, as compared to Bell and the cases discussed by this Court therein, the evidence of motive and opportunity here was much stronger. For example, in Bell, the Court held the evidence insufficient to send the second-degree murder charge to the jury because “[t] he only substantial evidence linking [the] defendant to the crime consisted of the victim's keys which were found in [the] defendant's pockets.” 65 N.C.App. at 241, 309 S.E.2d at 468–69. In Hayden, this Court noted that, although there was substantial evidence of motive,
taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the only evidence presented at trial as to [the] defendant's opportunity to commit the crime in question was from [the] defendant's 1998 statement, made 26 years after the murder, that he was briefly in a spot two miles away from the scene of the crime. No evidence was presented at trial placing [the] defendant at the scene of the crime, much less placing him there at the time the crime was committed. As such, we cannot hold that the State presented sufficient evidence of [the] defendant's opportunity to commit the crime in question.
––– N.C.App. at ––––, 711 S.E.2d at 497. The Court also concluded the State had failed to present substantial evidence of means. Id. at ––––, 711 S.E.2d at 499.
Here, in contrast, Defendant was known to own a gun, had previously shot up Thomas's car, had repeatedly threatened and harassed Thomas to the point she had to change her phone number, had threatened to kill Thomas the day of the shooting, was seen across the street from Thomas's apartment shortly after the shots were fired, and a few minutes later, actually knocked on Thomas's back door. We hold that this evidence of Defendant's motive, means, and opportunity to commit the crimes charged was sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss and send the case to the jury. Accordingly, this argument is overruled. II. Evidence of Specific Intent
Defendant next argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the AWDWITK charges where the evidence of Defendant's specific intent was insufficient. We again disagree.
“There must be substantial evidence of all material elements of the crime charged to withstand the motion to dismiss. A specific intent to kill is an essential element of the offense of assault with intent to kill.” State v. Irwin, 55 N.C.App. 305, 309, 285 S.E.2d 345, 349 (1982) (citations, quotation marks, and brackets omitted).
An intent to kill is a mental attitude, and ordinarily it must be proved, if proven at all, by circumstantial evidence, that is, by proving facts from which the fact sought to be proven may be reasonably inferred. An intent to kill may be inferred from the nature of the assault, the manner in which it was made, the conduct of the parties, and other relevant circumstances.
State v. Ferguson, 261 N.C. 558, 561, 135 S.E.2d 626, 629 (1964) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Further, as Defendant concedes, “[e]vidence tending to show that [the] defendant had threatened to kill [the victim for reporting the defendant's criminal activity to the police] is relevant as tending to prove [the] defendant's intent at the time he assaulted her.” State v. Tate, 294 N.C. 189, 196, 239 S.E.2d 821, 826 (1978). “Moreover, an assailant must be held to intend the natural consequences of his deliberate act.” State v. Grigsby, 351 N.C. 454, 457, 526 S.E.2d 460, 462 (2000) (citation and quotation marks omitted).
Here, Defendant repeatedly threatened Thomas, had previously shot up her car, and told an acquaintance the day of the shooting at issue that he planned to kill Thomas. Further, gunshots were fired into the wall of Thomas's occupied apartment such that two bullets entered the home, one of which struck a lamp near where Thomas was sitting at the time. This evidence permits a reasonable inference of Defendant's specific intent to kill in connection with the shooting. Accordingly, this argument is overruled.
NO ERROR. Judges STROUD and DILLON concur.
Report per Rule 30(e).