{
  "id": 8547308,
  "name": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. ROBERT EARL GILES",
  "name_abbreviation": "State v. Giles",
  "decision_date": "1977-09-21",
  "docket_number": "No. 7710SC303",
  "first_page": "112",
  "last_page": "115",
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    "name_abbreviation": "N.C. Ct. App.",
    "id": 14983,
    "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals"
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    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
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      "year": 1927,
      "opinion_index": 0
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      "cite": "193 N.C. 290",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "N.C.",
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      "cite": "174 S.E. 2d 793",
      "category": "reporters:state_regional",
      "reporter": "S.E.2d",
      "year": 1970,
      "opinion_index": 0
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    {
      "cite": "276 N.C. 641",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "N.C.",
      "case_ids": [
        8563176
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      "year": 1970,
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T20:28:15.830309+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "Judges Parker and Arnold concur."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. ROBERT EARL GILES"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "MARTIN, Judge.\nIn response to preliminary questions regarding her occupation and whereabouts at the time of the assault, Officer Simmons testified that she was a police officer working undercover on the North Carolina State University campus and that she was being \u201cused as a decoy in order to apprehend the subject or subjects responsible for reported assaults and rapes in the area.\u201d The defendant contends that this testimony should have been excluded as irrelevant and prejudicial and the court erred in allowing its admission. We disagree.\nThe testimony of Officer Simmons was not an attempt to introduce inadmissible evidence of similar offenses by the defendant. It in no way implicated the defendant, and the State made no attempt to prove that any other assaults or rapes had actually occurred or that the defendant was in any way responsible for or suspected of these other similar offenses. However, the testimony was relevant and necessary to inform the jury who the witness was, what her occupation was, and why she was on the North Carolina State University campus at the time the assault occurred. Thus, the cases cited by defendant concerning the admissibility of evidence of similar offenses are inapplicable here and the admission of Officer Simmons\u2019 testimony was proper.\nDefendant next contends that G.S. 14-22 \u201cprohibits conduct directed toward females without prohibiting the same conduct directed toward males\u201d and thereby denies him equal protection of the laws contrary to Article 1, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This contention is without merit. Allowing defendant\u2019s assertion that G.S. 14-22 speaks only to \u201can assault with intent to commit a rape upon ... [a] female,\u201d this Court, nevertheless, fails to perceive in what manner this statute denies defendant equal protection of the laws. The rule is well established that.\u201cequal protection of the laws is not denied by a statute prescribing the punishment to be inflicted on a person convicted of a crime unless it prescribes different punishment for the same acts committed under the same circumstances by persons in like situations.\u201d State v. Benton, 276 N.C. 641, 174 S.E. 2d 793 (1970); State v. Fowler, 193 N.C. 290, 136 S.E. 709 (1927); 16A C.J.S. Constitutional Law, \u00a7 564 (1956). Defendant has brought to the attention of this Court no person or class of persons, similarly situated or otherwise, to whom G.S. 14-22 would prescribe a different punishment for the commission of an assault with intent to commit rape on a female. Moreover, G.S. 14-22 is explicitly made applicable to \u201c[e]very person\u201d and thus, by its express terms makes no attempt to create legal classifications among those subject to its sanctions. In this respect, we note that the sanctions of 14-22 are equally applicable to a woman who, although incapable in and of herself to commit a rape, aids, abets and assists a man in the perpetration of an assault with intent to commit a rape. State v. Jones, 83 N.C. 605 (1880).\nWe have carefully reviewed defendant\u2019s remaining assignments of error and find them to be without merit. In the trial we find no prejudicial error.\nNo error.\nJudges Parker and Arnold concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "MARTIN, Judge."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Attorney General Edmisten, by Special Deputy Attorney General John R. B. Matthis, and Associate Attorney Rebecca R. Bevacqua, for the State.",
      "Tharrington, Smith & Hargrove, by Roger W. Smith, for the defendant."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. ROBERT EARL GILES\nNo. 7710SC303\n(Filed 21 September 1977)\n1. Criminal Law \u00a7 34.1\u2014 witness\u2019s occupation as undercover police officer \u2014 reason for presence at crime scene \u2014 similar offenses\nIn a prosecution for assault with intent to commit rape, the trial court did not err in the admission of testimony by the prosecutrix that at the time of the assault she was a police officer working undercover on the N. C. State University campus and that she was being \u201cused as a decoy in order to apprehend the subject or subjects responsible for reported assaults and. rapes in the area,\u201d since the testimony was not an attempt to show similar offenses by defendant but was relevant to inform the jury of the witness\u2019s occupation and reason for being on the N. C. State campus at the time of the assault.\n2. Rape \u00a7 17; Constitutional Law \u00a7 28\u2014 assault with intent to commit rape upon female \u2014 equal protection\nThe statute prescribing the punishment for assault with intent to commit rape upon a female, G.S. 14-22, does not deny equal protection of the laws to a male defendant by prohibiting conduct directed toward females without prohibiting the same conduct directed toward males since the statute does not prescribe different punishment for the same acts committed under the same circumstances by persons in like situations, and the statute applies to \u201cevery person\u201d and would be equally applicable to a female who aids, abets and assists a man in the perpetration of an assault with intent to commit rape. N.C. Constitution, Art. I, \u00a7 19; U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV.\nAPPEAL by defendant from Bailey, Judge. Judgment entered 12 October 1976 in Superior Court, WAKE County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 1 September 1977.\nThe defendant was indicted for assault with intent to commit rape.\nEvidence for the State tended to show that Carol Simmons was a Raleigh Patrolman and on the night of 5 May 1976 was working undercover with the Selective Enforcement Unit on the North Carolina State University campus. She testified that as she walked past the Alumni Building, defendant grabbed her from behind; that she screamed and struggled, and the defendant gouged her in the crotch area and continuously grabbed her having his hand in the area of her vagina; and that after defendant pushed her forward and released his hands, she turned around and saw the back of him running and noticed that he was not wearing anything except socks. The testimony of the officers who were following Carol Simmons tended to show that they came in response to her screams and chased a man wearing nothing but socks; that they caught up with' him several times but his skin was covered with an extremely slippery substance other than sweat which enabled him to slip away from them. They testified that the man dropped a bottle of skin lotion as he ran; that they finally caught defendant and put him in a police car; that defendant asked for his clothes and police found his clothes in the area of the attack; and that defendant told police, where they could find his automobile parked on the campus.\nThe defendant offered no evidence.\nUpon a verdict of guilty of the offense charged, the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for the term of not less than ten years nor more than fifteen years. He appealed to this Court.\nAttorney General Edmisten, by Special Deputy Attorney General John R. B. Matthis, and Associate Attorney Rebecca R. Bevacqua, for the State.\nTharrington, Smith & Hargrove, by Roger W. Smith, for the defendant."
  },
  "file_name": "0112-01",
  "first_page_order": 140,
  "last_page_order": 143
}