{ "id": 8523494, "name": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. ROY CECIL BALDWIN", "name_abbreviation": "State v. Baldwin", "decision_date": "1984-01-17", "docket_number": "No. 8323SC122", "first_page": "156", "last_page": "161", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "66 N.C. App. 156" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "N.C. Ct. App.", "id": 14983, "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 5, "name_long": "North Carolina", "name": "N.C." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "Fla. Stat. Ann. \u00a7 893.135", "category": "laws:leg_statute", "reporter": "Fla. Stat. Ann.", "year": 1983, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "(3)" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "272 S.E. 2d 123", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1980, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "301 N.C. 508", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8568158 ], "year": 1980, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/301/0508-01" ] }, { "cite": "395 So. 2d 514", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "So. 2d", "case_ids": [ 9557444 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "517" }, { "page": "519", "parenthetical": "emphasis added" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/so2d/395/0514-01" ] }, { "cite": "294 S.E. 2d 372", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1982, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "306 N.C. 559", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8572480, 8572462, 8572438, 8572537, 8572508 ], "year": 1982, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/306/0559-03", "/nc/306/0559-02", "/nc/306/0559-01", "/nc/306/0559-05", "/nc/306/0559-04" ] }, { "cite": "292 S.E. 2d 163", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1982, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "165" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "57 N.C. App. 602", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C. App.", "case_ids": [ 8525459 ], "year": 1982, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "606" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc-app/57/0602-01" ] }, { "cite": "284 S.E. 2d 575", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "577" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "55 N.C. App. 57", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C. App.", "case_ids": [ 8526691 ], "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "60-61" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc-app/55/0057-01" ] }, { "cite": "91 N.C. 550", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8697176 ], "year": 1884, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "552" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/91/0550-01" ] }, { "cite": "244 S.E. 2d 386", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1978, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "389" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "295 N.C. 236", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8562180 ], "year": 1978, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/295/0236-01" ] }, { "cite": "157 S.E. 2d 712", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1967, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "272 N.C. 67", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8570652 ], "year": 1967, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/272/0067-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 596, "char_count": 11223, "ocr_confidence": 0.806, "pagerank": { "raw": 2.659725313464713e-07, "percentile": 0.8247865029968928 }, "sha256": "6c5583cc8700757828aa3416c2f4a9309b57d255b299fdd376d644e09cb90e6d", "simhash": "1:896f723cba1eed58", "word_count": 1748 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T17:15:19.573584+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [ "Judge EAGLES concurs.", "Judge Hedrick dissents." ], "parties": [ "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. ROY CECIL BALDWIN" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "BECTON, Judge.\nDefendant appeals from judgment imposing a seven-year prison sentence for violations of the Drug Trafficking laws and the denial of his motion for appropriate relief based on the trial court\u2019s failure to consider his aid to law enforcement officers as an ameliorating circumstance under the leniency provision of the Drug Trafficking law, N. C. Gen. Stat. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5) (Supp. 1983).\nI\nOn 10 May 1982, defendant, Roy Baldwin, a Virginia resident, and two co-defendants, Dean and Taylor, were arrested when they tried to sell State Bureau of Investigation agents a quarter pound of cocaine in an undercover drug buy.\nAfter defendant\u2019s arrest, John Stubbs, a Special Agent with the State Bureau of Investigation, along with law enforcement officers from the Wilkes County Sheriffs Department and from Virginia, arranged for defendant to return to Virginia to help them in a \u201cjoint effort.\u201d The law enforcement officials gained defendant\u2019s assistance by suggesting that the sentencing judge would have the discretion to impose a trafficking sentence below the statutorily mandated minimum based on defendant\u2019s assistance.\nDefendant infiltrated a motorcycle gang active in Virginia and Tennessee. His efforts resulted in several arrests and drug charges. Taylor, his co-defendant, who had also offered to aid law enforcement officials, ended defendant\u2019s effectiveness in the motorcycle gang and endangered defendant\u2019s life when he told the gang members about defendant\u2019s cooperation with the police.\nMoreover, defendant aided law enforcement officials by making a statement at the time of his arrest which detailed the roles of each co-defendant and implicated Dean as the source of the cocaine seized. The defendant\u2019s statement compelled Dean to give the authorities his source in Florida and names of persons in other states.\nOn 21 September 1982, defendant pled guilty to one count of felonious conspiracy to traffic in cocaine and one count of felonious trafficking in cocaine by possession and transportation. As part of the plea bargain, the charges were consolidated for the purpose of sentencing and another trafficking charge was dismissed. After the sentencing hearing, defendant was sentenced to seven years, the mandatory minimum, and fined $50,000. Defendant filed a motion for appropriate relief, requesting a plenary hearing and to have the plea stricken or, in the alternative, to post appeal bond and appeal to the appellate court for an interpretation of G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5). Defendant\u2019s attorney argued that, in plea bargaining, defendant had been under the impression that his aid to law enforcement officials would qualify under G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5). The evidence at the sentencing hearing and the plenary hearing tended to show that defendant had rendered substantial assistance to law enforcement officials in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Florida. From the trial court\u2019s denial of defendant\u2019s motion and request for a new trial, defendant appeals.\nII\nDefendant first assigns error to the trial court\u2019s interpretation of the phrase \u201cany accomplices, accessories, co-conspirators, or principals\u201d in G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5). G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5) reads, in pertinent part, as follows:\n[T]he sentencing judge may reduce the fine, or impose a prison term less than the applicable minimum prison term provided by this subsection, or suspend the prison term imposed and place a person on probation when such person has, to the best of his knowledge, provided substantial assistance in the identification, arrest, or conviction of any accomplices, accessories, co-conspirators, or principals if the sentencing judge enters in the record a finding that the person to be sentenced has rendered such substantial assistance.\nHere the trial court, in denying defendant\u2019s motion for appropriate relief, made the following finding of fact:\n(4) That the defendant did furnish aid to the officers in the State of North Carolina, States of Virginia, Tennessee and Florida concerning drug law violations; however, this assistance did not deal with the identification, arrests, or conviction of any accomplices, accessories, co-conspirators or principals in these cases.\nIt is clear from the trial court\u2019s comments during the sentencing hearing and its finding of fact number 4 that the court read the statute to limit its consideration of defendant\u2019s \u201csubstantial assistance\u201d to assistance in the case being heard. Defendant argues that the \u201caccomplices, accessories, co-conspirators, or principals\u201d need not be involved in the case for which the defendant is being sentenced, and that G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5) therefore permits the trial court to consider defendant\u2019s \u201csubstantial assistance\u201d in other cases. We agree.\nCriminal statutes must be strictly construed. State v. Ross, 272 N.C. 67, 157 S.E. 2d 712 (1967). The ambiguity inherent in the phrase \u201cany accomplices, accessories, co-conspirators, or principals\u201d must be resolved by judicial construction to ascertain the legislative intent. In re Banks, 295 N.C. 236, 244 S.E. 2d 386 (1978). The legislative intent\nis to be ascertained by appropriate means and indicia, such as the purposes appearing from the statute taken as a whole, the phraseology, the words ordinary or technical, the law as it prevailed before the statute, the mischief to be remedied, the remedy, the end to be accomplished, statutes in pari materia, the preamble, the title, and other like means. . . .\nId. at 239, 244 S.E. 2d at 389 (quoting State v. Partlow, 91 N.C. 550, 552 (1884)).\nTo discern the legislative intent underlying G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5), we look first at the legislative intent in enacting the trafficking statutes, N. C. Gen. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 90-95(h) and (i). Our legislature enacted the trafficking statutes in 1979 under the title \u201cAn Act to Control Trafficking in Certain Controlled Substances.\u201d 1979 N.C. Sess. Laws, Ch. 1251. The title of the act and the mandatory sentences coupled with harsh fines for the sale, manufacture, delivery, transportation or possession of larger amounts of certain controlled substances or conspiracy to do any of the above reveal the legislative intent to deter drug-trafficking networks. \u201cOur legislature has determined that certain amounts of mixtures containing controlled substances indicate an intent to distribute on a large scale. . . . The penalties for sales of such amounts, therefore, are harsher. . . .\u201d State v. Tyndall, 55 N.C. App. 57, 60-61, 284 S.E. 2d 575, 577 (1981).\nYet, at the same time, our legislature recognized that the system of mandatory sentences coupled with harsh fines is not alone sufficient to \u201cdeter the corrupting influence of drug dealers and traffickers.\u201d State v. Anderson, 57 N.C. App. 602, 606, 292 S.E. 2d 163, 165, disc. review denied, 306 N.C. 559, 294 S.E. 2d 372 (1982). The nature of the crime \u2014\u201cthe mischief to be remedied\u201d \u2014 dictates the methods used. Trafficking relies on complex, interwoven networks. A principal in one network may be an accomplice in another. To effectively combat trafficking, police authorities need information on, and access to, the myriad of drug-dealing activities in the various networks. Built into the trafficking statutes is a bargaining tool, G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5), a provision exchanging potential leniency for assistance from those who have easy access to drug networks. It is the only provision in the trafficking statutory scheme which gives a sentencing judge the discretion not to impose the statutorily mandated minimum sentence and fine.\nWe are reinforced in our interpretation of the leniency provision in our trafficking statutes by the Florida Supreme Court\u2019s analysis of the purpose behind that state\u2019s similar trafficking statutes. See State v. Benitez, 395 So. 2d 514 (Fla. 1981). The Florida Supreme Court discussed the Florida leniency provision, in light of the overall intent of its trafficking statutes:\nSection 893.135 was enacted to assist law enforcement authorities in the investigation and prosecution of illegal drug trafficking at all levels of distribution, from the importer-organizer down to the \u2018pusher\u2019 on the street. The harsh mandatory penalties of subsection (1), ameliorated by the prospect of leniency in subsection (3), were clearly calculated to provide a strong incentive for drug violators to cooperate with law enforcement authorities and become informers.\nId. at 517.\nIn upholding the constitutionality of the leniency provision, the Benitez court stated: \u201cNothing in the statute suggests that \u2018substantial assistance\u2019 must incriminate the defendant of crimes other than those for which he has already been convicted (and for which no fifth amendment privilege is obviously necessary). We acknowledge the risk of prosecution in other jurisdictions.\u201d Id. at 519 (emphasis added). The Florida Supreme Court\u2019s refusal to limit the application of the leniency provision to \u201csubstantial assistance\u201d in the same case mirrors what we perceive to be our legislature\u2019s intent.\nThe trial court\u2019s failure to exercise its discretion under G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5), based on a misinterpretation of the statute, constitutes error. State v. Lang, 301 N.C. 508, 272 S.E. 2d 123 (1980). Since there was evidence of defendant\u2019s \u201csubstantial assistance\u201d before the trial court, the error was prejudicial. We, therefore, order the matter remanded for a new sentencing hearing. We need not address defendant\u2019s other assignments of error.\nRemanded for resentencing.\nJudge EAGLES concurs.\nJudge Hedrick dissents.\n. The current G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(5) is an amended version of G.S. \u00a7 90-95(h)(6). Because of confusion as to the effective date of the amendment at the time of publication, the 1981 edition of Volume 2C of the N. C. General Statutes, containing G.S. \u00a7 90-95, referred to both versions.\n. Fla. Stat. Ann. \u00a7 893.135(3) (West 1983) reads, in pertinent part, as follows:\n(3) The state attorney may move the sentencing court to reduce or suspend the sentence of any person who is convicted of a violation of this section and who provides substantial assistance in the identification, arrest, or conviction of any of his accomplices, accessories, co-conspirators, or principals.", "type": "majority", "author": "BECTON, Judge." } ], "attorneys": [ "Attorney General Edmisten, by Associate Attorney General Walter M. Smith, for the State.", "William C. Gray, Jr., for defendant appellant." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. ROY CECIL BALDWIN\nNo. 8323SC122\n(Filed 17 January 1984)\nNarcotics 8 5\u2014 failure to consider ameliorating circumstance under leniency provision of drug trafficking law error\nThe trial court erred in failing to consider defendant\u2019s aid to law enforcement officers as an ameliorating circumstance under the leniency provisions of the Drug Trafficking law, G.S. 90-95(h)(5), where defendant had rendered substantial assistance to law enforcement officials in four states and his efforts had resulted in several arrests and drug charges and had endangered defendant\u2019s life. The trial court erroneously read the statute to limit its consideration of defendant\u2019s \u201csubstantial assistance\u201d to assistance in the case being heard only.\nJudge Hedrick dissents.\nAppeal by defendant from Mills, Judge. Judgment entered 23 September 1982 in Superior Court, Wilkes County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 18 October 1983.\nAttorney General Edmisten, by Associate Attorney General Walter M. Smith, for the State.\nWilliam C. Gray, Jr., for defendant appellant." }, "file_name": "0156-01", "first_page_order": 188, "last_page_order": 193 }