{
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  "name": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. JEFFERY LEVON EASON",
  "name_abbreviation": "State v. Eason",
  "decision_date": "1984-04-03",
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    "judges": [
      "Judge Arnold concurs.",
      "Judge Becton dissents."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. JEFFERY LEVON EASON"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "WHICHARD, Judge.\nGuilt Phase\nG.S. 15A-1232 provides, in pertinent part: \u201cIn instructing the jury, the judge must declare and explain the law arising on the evidence. He is not required to state the evidence except to the extent necessary to explain the application of the law [thereto].\u201d Defendant contends he is entitled to a new trial because the court here \u201cgave no summary of [his] evidence and stated only so much of the State\u2019s evidence and contentions as was necessary to support a guilty verdict.\u201d\nDefendant, however, did not object to this at trial. After the jury retired, but before it began deliberations, the court asked if defendant had any objections to the instructions or any requests for additional instructions. Defense counsel replied in the negative. Defendant thus has waived his right to assign error to the instructions. N.C. R. App. P. 10(b)(2).\nDefendant argues, nevertheless, that the asserted defects in the instructions affect a substantial right, and should be considered under the \u201cplain error\u201d rule despite his failure to object. While our Supreme Court has approved the \u201cplain error\u201d rule, see State v. Odom, 307 N.C. 655, 660-61, 300 S.E. 2d 375, 378 (1983), it has noted that \u201c \u2018[i]t is the rare case in which an improper instruction will justify reversal of a criminal conviction when no objection has been made in the trial court.\u2019 \u201d Id. at 661, 300 S.E. 2d at 378 (quoting Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 154, 52 L.Ed. 2d 203, 212, 97 S.Ct. 1730, 1736 (1977)). It has instructed that \u201c[i]n deciding whether a defect in the jury instruction constitutes \u2018plain error,\u2019 the appellate court must examine the entire record and determine if the instructional error had a probable impact on the jury\u2019s finding of guilt.\u201d Id. at 661, 300 S.E. 2d at 378-79.\nA careful review of the entire record reveals no \u201cplain error\u201d mandating a new trial. The evidence clearly established that someone, without consent, broke into the victim\u2019s residence in the nighttime and got into bed with her. The only significant question was whether defendant was the offender.\nThe evidence which tended to identify defendant as the offender was circumstantial. There was testimony that defendant at times wore around his neck a blue towel with a cord attached. A blue towel with a cord attached was found in the victim\u2019s bed. There was evidence that blue fibers were found on the victim\u2019s window sill; that officers subsequently removed some blue socks from a bag of clothing which defendant identified as his; and that the fibers in defendant\u2019s socks were consistent with the fibers found on the victim\u2019s window sill. A hair found on the victim\u2019s bed was generally similar to defendant\u2019s hair, though insufficiently so to permit a firm conclusion that it was his. A witness, who stated that he knew defendant\u2019s voice, testified that sometime subsequent to the offense he stood behind a hedge \u201cseven or eight or ten yards\u201d away and overheard defendant describe his involvement in an incident which fit the victim\u2019s description of the incident here. The victim here was pregnant, and the woman the witness heard defendant describe was pregnant. The victim here was cut on the hand with a knife, and the witness heard defendant state that he cut the woman he described with a knife.\nDefendant testified to an alibi defense. Other witnesses in his behalf corroborated his story.\nWe find this evidence sufficiently uncomplicated that failure to summarize it is unlikely to have \u201chad a probable impact on the jury\u2019s finding of guilt,\u201d Odom, supra, or to have affected defendant\u2019s fundamental or substantial rights. See State v. Best, 265 N.C. 477, 480, 144 S.E. 2d 416, 418 (1965); State v. Owens, 61 N.C. App. 342, 344, 300 S.E. 2d 581, 582 (1983). Following the Odom standard, we thus hold that this is not \u201cthe rare case\u201d in which application of the \u201cplain error\u201d rule is appropriate. This assignment of error is therefore overruled.\nSentencing Phase\nDefendant contends the court erred in finding the following as an \u201cadditional\u201d aggravating factor: \u201cThe victim . . . was particularly vulnerable because . . . she was in an advancefd] stage of pregnancy and the Defendant was specifically aware of this vulunerability [sic] and made a calculative decision to proceed with the commission of this offense.\u201d We find no error.\nThe victim testified during the guilt phase that she had told the offender that she \u201chad a baby\u201d and \u201cwas pregnant,\u201d and that the offender responded that he knew these things. The victim also testified that she was eight and one-half months pregnant at the time. There was no contrary evidence. A preponderance of the evidence thus supported the finding. G.S. 15A-1340.4(a).\nWhile the court entered the finding as an \u201cadditional\u201d rather than a \u201cstatutory\u201d aggravating factor, the finding is clearly analogous to the statutory factor that \u201c[t]he victim was very young, or very old, or mentally or physically infirm.\" G.S. 15A-1340.4(a)(l)(j)(emphasis supplied). Our Supreme Court has stated that \u201cvulnerability is clearly the concern addressed by this factor.\u201d State v. Ahearn, 307 N.C. 584, 603, 300 S.E. 2d 689, 701 (1983). This Court has stated that \u201cthe underlying policy of [this] . . . factor is to discourage wrongdoers from taking advantage of a victim because of the victim\u2019s young or old age or infirmity.\u201d State v. Mitchell, 62 N.C. App. 21, 29, 302 S.E. 2d 265, 270 (1983). It has held that age of the victim is not \u201creasonably related to the purposes of sentencing,\u201d as required by G.S. 15A-1340.4(a), unless culpability is enhanced by defendant\u2019s having taken advantage of the victim\u2019s relative defenselessness occasioned by age. See State v. Rivers, 64 N.C. App. 554, 557-58, 307 S.E. 2d 588, 590 (1983); State v. Monk, 63 N.C. App. 512, 523, 305 S.E. 2d 755, 762 (1983); Mitchell, supra, 62 N.C. App. at 29, 302 S.E. 2d at 270; State v. Gaynor, 61 N.C. App. 128, 130-31, 300 S.E. 2d 260, 262 (1983).\nWe believe the victim\u2019s advanced stage of pregnancy could properly be viewed as an infirmity which, under the circumstances of the offense, enhanced her vulnerability and rendered her relatively defenseless. This condition generally would diminish the victim\u2019s capacity to resist the offender. It would augment the potential adverse consequences of the offense, in that not only the victim, but her unborn child as well, are vulnerable to the offender\u2019s intrusion. The trauma to the victim is enhanced by concern for her unborn child added to normal concern for herself. The impact of the crime on the victim is relevant to the question of sentencing and is properly considered under G.S. 15A-1340.4(a)(1). State v. Blackwelder, 309 N.C. 410, 413 n. 1, 306 S.E. 2d 783, 786 n. 1 (1983).\nWe further believe the evidence that defendant proceeded despite knowledge of the victim\u2019s condition could properly be viewed as demonstrating a greater degree of depravity than would commission of such an offense absent this condition. His knowledge of the condition thus could properly be viewed as a factor which increased his culpability. G.S. 15A-1340.3.\nFor the foregoing reasons, we hold that the aggravating factor in question was \u201creasonably related to the purposes of sentencing,\u201d G.S. 15A-1340.4(a), and that the court did not err in finding it.\nDefendant contends the court erred in finding as an aggravating factor that he had been convicted of prior offenses. He does not dispute existence of the convictions, which the State established by introduction of certified copies of judgments. He argues, however, that the State did not sustain its burden of proving that at the time he either was not indigent, was represented by counsel, or had waived counsel.\nOur Supreme Court has now established that defendant has the initial burden of raising the issue of indigency and lack of assistance of counsel on a prior conviction. State v. Thompson, 309 N.C. 421, 307 S.E. 2d 156 (1983). Defendant did not raise the issue in the trial court, and he thus cannot now do so here.\nNo error.\nJudge Arnold concurs.\nJudge Becton dissents.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "WHICHARD, Judge."
      },
      {
        "text": "Judge Becton\ndissenting.\nBelieving that the trial court\u2019s failure to summarize defendant\u2019s evidence affected defendant\u2019s substantial rights under State v. Best, 265 N.C. 477, 144 S.E. 2d 416 (1965), and was plain error under State v. Odom, 307 N.C. 655, 300 S.E. 2d 375 (1983), I dissent.\nOnly when the evidence is simple and direct and without equivocation and complication is the failure to summarize any evidence harmless error. State v. Best. In my view, the evidence presented at defendant\u2019s trial was far from unequivocal. The State relied almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, the implications of which were often ambiguous.\nThe prosecuting witness awoke to discover an intruder astraddle her as she lay on her side in the bed in her dark bedroom. When the intruder threatened her with a knife, she grabbed the blade of the knife, pushed it away, and screamed. The intruder yanked back the knife, cutting her hand, and fled through. an open window. Although the prosecuting witness at trial described the intruder as dark and muscular with short hair, wearing something white on the upper part of his body, the prosecuting witness admitted on cross-examination that she had made two prior statements to the police in which she stated that the only thing she had observed about the intruder was that he appeared to be wearing a short-sleeved white shirt. She also admitted that she had previously failed to identify the defendant as the person who had been in her room that night. The only other direct evidence offered by the State on the issue of identity came from Ed Towler, who testified that he overheard defendant admitting involvement in a crime very similar to the one at issue in this case. Towler then testified that he immediately entered his house and spoke with his daughter, who was living with him at that time. Significantly, Towler\u2019s daughter testified that she had not, as her father testified, been living with him on the night in question. Although evidence relating to four items of physical evidence (hair, fingerprints, knife, and fiber) was presented, S.B.I. agent Troy Hamlin could only testify that he received a \u201cnegroid hair fragment\u201d; detective Larry Carter testified that the fingerprints did not match the defendant\u2019s, that no blood residue was found on the knife, and that the fiber from the window and from the socks were both light blue acrylic fibers that could have originated from the same source.\nGiven the defendant\u2019s alibi testimony, the testimony of several of his witnesses that they had never seen defendant with a towel like the one offered in evidence by the State, and the testimony of Ed Towler\u2019s daughter, among other things, I cannot say that the failure to summarize defendant\u2019s evidence had no probable impact on the jury\u2019s finding of guilt.",
        "type": "dissent",
        "author": "Judge Becton"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Attorney General Edmisten, by Assistant Attorney General William B. Ray, for the State.",
      "Appellate Defender Adam Stein, by Assistant Appellate Defender David W. Dorey, for defendant appellant."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. JEFFERY LEVON EASON\nNo. 8311SC854\n(Filed 3 April 1984)\n1. Criminal Law \u00a7 113.1\u2014 instructions \u2014 summary of evidence \u2014 no \u201cplain error\u201d\nIn a prosecution for first degree burglary, a trial court\u2019s summary of the evidence did not constitute \u201cplain error\u201d where the court gave no summary of defendant\u2019s evidence and stated only portions of the State\u2019s evidence since the evidence was sufficiently uncomplicated that failure to summarize it was unlikely to have \u201chad a probable impact on the jury\u2019s finding of guilt.\u201d G.S. 15A-1232.\n2. Criminal Law \u00a7 138\u2014 aggravating factor that victim particularly vulnerable \u2014 supported by evidence\nIn a prosecution for first degree burglary, the evidence supported an \u201cadditional\u201d aggravating factor that the victim was particularly vulnerable because of the fact that she was 8-% months pregnant and defendant was aware of her condition. G.S. 15A-1340.4(a).\nJudge Becton dissenting.\nAPPEAL by defendant from Brewer, Judge. Judgment entered 4 February 1983 in Superior Court, JOHNSTON County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 9 February 1984.\nDefendant appeals from a judgment of imprisonment entered upon his conviction of first degree burglary.\nAttorney General Edmisten, by Assistant Attorney General William B. Ray, for the State.\nAppellate Defender Adam Stein, by Assistant Appellate Defender David W. Dorey, for defendant appellant."
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  "file_name": "0460-01",
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