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North Carolina v. Robinson10/3/1991
convictions, but remand the murder conviction to the Superior Court, Guilford County, for
a new capital sentencing proceeding not inconsistent with this opinion or the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in McKoy.
NO. 86CRS25055, ROBBERY WITH A DANGEROUS WEAPON -- NO ERROR.
NO. 87CRS20031, ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON WITH INTENT TO KILL INFLICTING SERIOUS INJURY -- NO ERROR;
NO. 87CRS20032, ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON WITH INTENT TO KILL INFLICTING SERIOUS INJURY -- NO ERROR;
NO. 86CRS25054, FIRST-DEGREE MURDER -- Guilt Phase: -- NO ERROR, Sentencing Phase: DEATH SENTENCE VACATED; REMANDED FOR NEW CAPITAL SENTENCING PROCEEDING.
Disposition
NO. 86CRS25055, ROBBERY WITH A DANGEROUS WEAPON -- NO ERROR.
NO. 87CRS20031, ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON WITH INTENT TO KILL INFLICTING SERIOUS INJURY -- NO ERROR;
NO. 87CRS20032, ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON WITH INTENT TO KILL INFLICTING SERIOUS INJURY -- NO ERROR;
NO. 86CRS25054, FIRST-DEGREE MURDER -- Guilt Phase: -- NO ERROR; Sentencing Phase: DEATH SENTENCE VACATED; REMANDED FOR NEW CAPITAL SENTENCING PROCEEDING.
Justice MITCHELL concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the result reached by the majority in its conclusion and holdings that the defendant's convictions for first-degree murder, robbery with a dangerous weapon and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury were without error. I dissent from that part of the decision of the majority vacating the death sentence entered against the defendant and remanding this case for a new capital sentencing proceeding.
I believe the majority is unwise to speculate by way of obiter dictum as to the circumstances under which testimony concerning experiments conducted by the defendant's witness, psychologist Spurgeon Cole, might be admissible to support an opinion formed by Cole, in his capacity as an expert in clinical psychology, concerning the reliability of eyewitness identification. As the majority points out, Cole never testified to having formed an opinion. No issue concerning what evidence might under various circumstances be admissible to support such an opinion is before this Court, and I decline to join in the speculation by the majority concerning such matters. Therefore, I concur only in the result reached by the majority in finding no error in the guilt-innocence phase of the defendant's trial.
More importantly, I disagree with the conclusion by the majority that the trial court's error in instructing the jurors they must be unanimous before finding any mitigating circumstance to exist was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, I dissent
from the holding of the majority vacating the sentence of death and remanding this case for a new capital sentencing proceeding.
The State concedes that the trial court's instructions to the jury violated the Eight and Fourteenth Amendments as construed in McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 108 L. Ed. 2d 369 (1990). Since the error is of constitutional magnitude, the State must bear the burden of showing that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. McKoy, 327 N.C. 31, 44, 394 S.E.2d 426, 433 (1990); N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(b) (1988). Contrary to the majority, I believe that the State has borne that burden in the present case.
The majority concludes that the trial court's erroneous unanimity instruction may have prevented a juror from finding the "m
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